Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 9, 1994 TAG: 9409090053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
But museum supporters are warning that would effectively kill the 9-year-old museum, which features exhibits on Virginia's geology and prehistoric life.
``On the surface anyway, it's a death knell. The bells are tolling,'' said F. Seward Anderson Jr., chairman of the museum's 25-member board of trustees.
As a state agency, the museum gets almost all of its funding, about $2 million annually, from the state to pay for research, education, maintenance and salaries. ``To deprive the museum of that funding is to destroy the museum,'' Anderson said.
This is the second time in less than a year that Martinsville has been confronted with the museum's possible demise.
Earlier this year, museum officials explored a possible merger with Virginia's Explore Park, in Roanoke County.
They claimed the museum has had difficulty obtaining sufficient state funding in the past faced and warned that Allen's administration might try to close it altogether as a cost-saving move.
But city leaders reacted violently, fearing that a merger was a prelude to moving the museum out of Martinsville entirely, and the idea was dropped.
On Wednesday, though, a committee of Allen's Commission on Government Reform voted to recommend just what museum leaders had feared - that it be eliminated as a state agency.
John Crump, a commission staff member, noted that Martinsville leaders had rallied around the museum earlier this year when the Explore merger was discussed. If Martinsville cares so deeply about the museum, he said, then the community should be able to raise the money to keep it open.
The draft recommendation states that the museum "should be returned to those that were the most interested in its creation and have a vested and keep interest in its continuation.'' Under the committee's proposal, the museum, as a nonprofit foundation, still would be able to compete for state funds with other nonprofit groups, such as Roanoke's Center in the Square.
But a Martinsville state legislator said that state agency status - and the guaranteed state funding - is essential to keeping the museum opening.
``I can't help but believe that won't seriously damage the museum,'' said Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Martinsville.
Museum revenues and local contributions are ``a drop in the bucket'' compared to what the museum receives from the state, Armstrong said. Last year, the museum raised $80,000 in contributions.
Armstrong noted that the museum was created as a nonprofit foundation in 1985, but strugged financially until his predecessor - the late Speaker of the House A.L. Philpott - pushed for legislation to make the museum a state agency in 1988.
The full 60-member commission will take up the recommendation to eliminate the museum's agency status on Sept. 28th, and then will hold four public hearings around the state on this and other recommendations. The commission will make its full report to the governor by Nov. 16.
Armstrong said he would launch a letter-writing campaign to fight for the museum to keep its state agency status and funding.
``This is just another problem for Martinsville and Henry County. We seem to be dying on the vine, and we can't get anybody in Richmond to listen,'' he said.
However, state Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, who had championed the proposed Explore-museum merger, said he wasn't surprised that Allen's commission was looking at eliminating it as a state agency.
"When you have a museum that draws only 18,000 people per year and gets $2 million in state funding, that stands out like a sore thumb," Bell said.
But he noted that just because the commission recommends something doesn't mean the General Assembly will approve it.
by CNB