County Museum has community support
b'May 23, 2022 \\u2014 Well over 120 people, representing political, business, and arts and history interests, turned out for a behind-the-scenes tour at the Mendocino County Museum on Friday night. There was even an impromptu concert, featuring flute, kazoo, harmonica and guitar by musicians Malakai Schindel and Kyle Madrigal. \\nThe event doubled as a mixer for the Willits Chamber of Commerce, and did triple duty as a show of support for the museum, which is in danger of losing its funding amidst budget woes.\\nThe county just hired a new curator three weeks ago, a few months after Karen Mattson\\u2019s promotion to museum Administrator. Lindsay Dick, who has a masters degree in Museum Studies and came to Mendocino from Oregon for the curator position, doesn\\u2019t even have a badge with her name on it yet.\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s a lot of detail work,\\u201d she said. \\u201cIt does sound like anybody could be it, but you have to be specialized. You have to know how to take the pests and how to help mitigate them, and keep them at bay\\u2026you\\u2019ve got to have the skills to do that.\\u201d\\nDeb Fader Samson is the Director of the Cultural Services Agency, which includes the museum and the libraries. She believes she has reason to believe that closing the museum won\\u2019t save any money. County estimates for museum operations are half a million dollars a year, with $20,000 of revenue. But, \\u201cduring one of the times when the museum wasn\\u2019t being staffed at its fullest, we wound up having a roof leak and a lot of the textiles got ruined,\\u201d she said. \\u201cIt cost over $370,000 to make the repair, and then do all of the mold remediation\\u2026If you shutter the place, and nobody\\u2019s here to watch that, that could happen again.\\u201d Fader Samson added that she does not believe the museum saved any money by being closed during the pandemic, because staff was redirected to other work.\\nVolunteer Brent Walker was stationed in between a display of fancy hats from an early 20th century Ukiah milliners\\u2019 shop and the wreck of Judi Bari\\u2019s bombed car. He\\u2019s one of the people working on getting the Friends of the Museum group underway again. \\u201cCovid kind of slowed us down a bit,\\u201d he acknowledged. \\u201cBut we\\u2019re now at the point where we\\u2019re ready to branch out and get out in the community, and we\\u2019re looking to hear from people who are interested in being involved.\\u201d\\nThe backgrounds of the volunteers are as varied as the collections themselves. Volunteer Scott Ferleman knows all about the history of McNamee\\u2019s General Store, which was the center of commerce in Fishrock for well over seventy years. He\\u2019s proud to be known as the \\u201cTool Guy\\u201d around the museum, due to his own work history. His first job was disassembling a merry-go-round, which led to building roller coasters and other equipment for amusement parks. As soon as he retired, he said, \\u201cThe first thing I did was come down here to the museum and say, I\\u2019d like to spend more time in here and volunteer.\\u201d \\nWillits Mayor Saprina Rodriguez said the Willits City Council is planning to take up a resolution at its meeting this Wednesday, asking the Board of Supervisors not to close the museum. \\u201cThe fact that they would even consider cutting this at all is disturbing,\\u201d she said. \\u201cAnd then without having done a proper analysis of what the savings would be to the county.\\u201d\\nRodriguez says she\\u2019s been receiving torrents of messages from worried constituents. \\u201cKnowing that Visit Mendocino is going to receive more money in Transient Occupancy Tax than had originally been budgeted,\\u201d she said, \\u201cthere might be some hope that they would put some money forth to save the museum.\\u201d\\nLisa Kvasnicka, president of the Willits Chamber of Commerce, says the museum has the support of the business community, too. \\u201cTourism is huge,\\u201d she said. With covid, \\u201cWe\\u2019ve been without a lot of the commerce from tourism\\u2026a lot of doors have been closed, a lot of businesses have been lost. But people are out and about, and they want to see what\\u2019s out there. This museum gets a lot of tourists.\\u201d With events right across the street at Recreation Grove, Kvasnicka added, \\u201cI think it\\u2019s a win-win for the city. And I think we have support. I think it was shown tonight, by the numbers.\\u201d \\nIt\\u2019s unclear how much peril the museum is actually in. Supervisor John Haschak has come out as a strong supporter of keeping it open, and Supervisor Dan Gjerde said he thought it would be \\u201ca bit radical\\u201d to shut it down. An unknown amount of cannabis tax may appear in the county\\u2019s coffers on May 31st. \\nSchindel and Madrigal made their thoughts clear, as Schindel set aside his flute for a few moment to urge the Board of Supervisors to \\u201ckeep this vital piece of our heritage alive!\\u201d\\nThe budget hearings, which are open to the public, are on June 7th and 8th.'