History museum will stay at port site, can expand  

Unanimous decision made in last meeting with Briggs and Thomsen

By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer

The debate over the location for The History Museum of Hood River County reached an anticlimactic end Monday night when the Hood River County Commission voted unanimously to keep the museum at its current location and authorized it to move forward with phase one of its expansion plans.

Before its monthly meeting, the board heard from consultant Alice Parman, Ph.D., who was contracted by the county using museum funds in October to determine whether the museum should remain at its current location or move to a Tucker Road site next to the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum.

“Three main factors weighed against moving,” Parman said. She cited the cost of the move and construction of a new building which she said would be much more expensive than the given estimates by Phil Jensen, the Hood River resident and longtime museum board member who has been the driving force behind the Tucker Road plan.

“(The History Museum’s) costs for a new building at the Tucker Road site would be significantly higher than Mr. Jensen’s estimate of $50 per square foot. The type of steel building that can responsibly house an aviation and vehicle collection is not adequate for a history museum with fragile artifacts and documents made of perishable materials.

“A medium-level building usable for museum purposes would cost a minimum of $185 to 200 per square foot. In addition, THM would have to pay for moving its collections, including large outdoor artifacts,” Parman wrote in her report.

She also cited a lack of a formal plan for an organizational structure, business model or governance for a consortium of museums at Tucker Road.

“Bringing them together would be a complex task,” she said.

She also said that WAAAM had not formally committed to the project and that before going ahead with a move the history museum would have to spend considerable legal costs to protect the museum if plans did not work out.

She also said that a smaller museum linking up with a larger institution does not guarantee them an increase in attendance.

She cited the example of the World Forestry Center and the Portland Children’s Museum, which are sited next to the Oregon Zoo. The zoo brings in 1.6 million people a year, while the forestry center brings in 60,000 and the children’s museum 300,000.

Currently WAAAM’s attendance is around 25,000 and Parman said that using the same percentages of the Portland museums, “at most the spillover might be 5,000, which is what they are getting now.”

She also said there are several positive reasons to keep the museum in its current location. The current site has room for the first part of the museum’s expansion plan and the museum already has the cash in hand for the first phase.

She also said its current location lends to possible partnerships with other local groups, such as a visitors center.

Parman also contrasted Hood River with Park City, Utah, which she said was a similar town in both size and attractions (such as outdoor recreation and tourism) and said that attendance at Park City’s museum increased substantially after a remodel and dedicated marketing campaign.

“Now they are an active part of Park City, which is a lively and trendy place,” she said.

She also added that the museum’s membership in the Columbia Gorge Arts and Culture Alliance means the museum can collaborate with other area museums regardless of whether those museums are located across town or across the Gorge.

“Collaboration does not depend on location,” she said.

The commissioners thanked Parman for her report and felt that it was worth conducting.

“It was thorough and answered a lot of our questions, which is what we needed,” chairman Ron Rivers said.

A crowd of about 30 people gathered to watch the vote by the commissioners during the meeting. After a brief discussion over whether they should make the decision to authorize the museum to move forward with its expansion plans, or to continue to explore the Tucker Road option, the board voted unanimously to allow the museum to go ahead with its expansion.

Parman’s full report is posted on the Hood River County website and can be downloaded at: www.co.hood-river.or.us.

n

The meeting was the final one for commissioners Barbara Briggs and Chuck Thomsen. Briggs is stepping down to spend more time with family while Thomsen is moving on to the state senate.

The other three commissioners got in jabs and jokes throughout the meeting at their departing brethren.

“Where does it say this is a roast on here?” Briggs said with a laugh of the meeting agenda.

Briggs and Thomsen co-led the pledge of allegiance at the start of the meeting.

Rivers said that five applications had been received so far to replace Briggs on the commission.

“That is amazing with the problems we have in government and I think it reflects well on the community,” Rivers said.

The deadline for applications is Dec. 28 and applications can be downloaded from the county website (www.co.hood-river.or.us).

Also during the work session and meeting:

n The Hood River County Commission on Children and Families delivered an update on its budget for the coming year.

n The commission approved numerous budget adjustments for the 2010-11 fiscal year which included pulling back six furlough days and bringing some district attorney and forestry department employees back to full-time status.

n County Public Works Director Dean Guess and Gabe Johnson and Joe Fusch of McKinstry, (a design, build, operate and maintain firm) which has been conducting an energy audit of county buildings, delivered an update on the process.

They delivered a final cost on upgrades to the County Business Administration building, courthouse and library.

“The idea is to create a project that basically pays for itself” through incentives and energy savings, Johnson said. “This project is budget-positive.”

The board discussed whether or not to keep the library in the project, as the county will soon be handing building operations over when the library reopens. They decided to go forward with the project as it stands and to discuss with the library board possibilities for recouping the investment.

“We are baby sitting that building and are trying to keep it at 50 degrees,” Guess said. “We can’t do it. It’s at 70, 60, 40 but not staying at 50 and we need improvements even just to baby-sit it.”