Longtime Dearborn resident David Good, chairman of the Dearborn Historical Commission and author of Orvie: The Dictator of Dearborn, sent us the column below.

A former editor at The Detroit News, Good writes about the city’s master plan survey and the importance of filling out the online survey and allotting a few dollars to the category of “civic institutions” as a way to let our city leaders know that preserving one of Dearborn’s gems, the Historical Museum, is a priority.

Residents have until Aug. 1 to complete the online survey.

Good’s column begins below.

 “You have $100 to spend on public improvements in the City. How would you split your money?”

That’s one of the key questions in a master plan survey posted on the Dearborn city web site (www.cityofdearborn.org) as part of an effort to get residents involved in guiding “the future development of the city.”

If you’re a good citizen and fill out the survey by the Aug. 1 deadline, either online or on paper, chances are you’ll put most of your $100 on everybody’s usual priorities: police and fire, roads and parks. But if you don’t allot at least a few dollars for the category of civic institutions, you’ll be giving city officials a clue that it’s OK to let one of Dearborn’s least-known gems, the Historical Museum, close its doors.

As explained by Chief Curator Kirt Gross in the current issue of the museum’s quarterly publication, The Dearborn Historian, the museum is facing a “perfect storm” of increasing expenses and declining city revenues. In past years Dearborn has provided more money for historical museum operation than any other city in Michigan. But the daunting budget problems facing cities everywhere led Mayor Jack O’Reilly, always a strong supporter of the historical community, to look for ways to make the museum entirely self-sufficient within three years.

In June the City Council shocked museum supporters by slashing funding by about two-thirds for the new fiscal year – and cutting off city financial support altogether after next June. Unless the master plan survey helps convince city officials that the museum means more to the city than they think it does, the funding cuts means the museum will have to cannibalize money that was earmarked for a storage/exhibit building. And when that money begins to run out, the next steps will be to trim staff even beyond current record-low levels, sell off items from the collection, end the education program that shows second-graders what pioneer life was like – and finally close down the museum’s buildings.

In the meantime, the museum will have to drop plans to convert an old Quality Inn Motel building near Garrison and Brady into a facility to house the museum’s extensive collection of historical artifacts. You’ll recognize the motel building, which shares a wall with the museum’s office building, by the plywood sheeting that covers one entire north face of the former motel.

One bit of gallows humor prompted by the current financial troubles is a tongue-in-cheek suggestion to cover the drywall with a mural and perhaps a slogan like “We’re history.”

Needless to say, museum officials are already planning a fund-raising campaign, but these are dicey times to be asking people to donate money for a historical museum.

Maybe the best hope right now is a plan to include an advisory question on the November ballot to ask voters how they feel about more money for the museum.

In the meantime, for the first time since the Historical Museum opened its doors six decades ago, it is now offering individual memberships to those who have supported its activities and programs in the past. At the same time, the museum announced it will be asking first-time-ever fees for subscriptions to the Dearborn Historian and for admission to museum buildings.

Officials anticipate making every individual in the Dearborn historical community a card-carrying associate member of the museum – at no charge. Along with membership cards, the museum will be offering expanded opportunities to volunteer and to elect a higher level of support to the museum. Associate members who wish to upgrade their memberships by donating to the museum will be eligible for such additional benefits as a subscription to the Historian and discounts at the museum shop.

While all this is going on, museum officials are counting on residents to take the first positive step and fill out those master plan surveys, checking off the boxes that indicate support for culture and history – and by all means allocating as much as possible of that survey’s not-so-imaginary $100 for civic institutions like the Dearborn Historical Museum.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 at 5:06 am and is filed under Around Town, Arts & Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.