Wheaton candidates debate culture funding

A city council candidate says Wheaton Center for History officials should talk to the park district about space in the DuPage County Historical Museum or possibly Arrowhead Golf Club to display their artifacts and not worry about the center’s financial future.

Evelyn Pacino Sanguinetti also said the city should have nothing to do with the Wheaton Grand Theater — the future of which essentially has been placed on hold until a nonbinding referendum in April.

“Should we provide humanitarian and artistic events? Sure, during other economic times,” the political newcomer said. “But right now, we are still at a time of a budgetary shortfall. I will not back the history center, the (Wheaton Municipal Band) or the theater during these budgetary short times.”

The comments came during a Daily Herald endorsement interview also attended by the center’s director and council candidate, Alberta Adamson. Downtown business owner Derek Bromstead, small business owner Bob Molenhouse and tax adviser Jeanne Ives also are running for the two open at-large seats.

Ives balked at giving any organization money without being allowed to have input into where it’s spent.

“We control what happens with the (Wheaton) band,” she said. “But (with the history center) we were giving money to a not-for-profit and not controlling the money.”

Adamson said the city was not “giving money” to the center but adhering to a 1991 ordinance that hired the historic commission to preserve the city’s artifacts.

That agreement was nixed by the city council in April 2009 and the center has struggled since by relying on donations and sponsorships.

The last payment made by the city was $225,000, which amounted to about 48 percent of the center’s annual budget, Adamson said.

She said the idea of moving the artifacts into a different museum go against the original intent of the Center for History, which was aimed at giving the city’s artifacts their own home.

“Why wouldn’t we just take care of Wheaton and this museum that has been here since 1980?” said Adamson, who has been executive director of the history center since 1985. “Why shouldn’t the community work together to keep this in the forefront?”

With advocates of the center and the Wheaton Grand Theater both struggling financially and hoping for city support, Bromstead said it’s important to keep them in the mix when it comes to funding.

“What are we as human beings without our culture?” he said. “We are robots. This struggle of how we pay for it, where we get the money from, there is always that balance that must be found.”

In April, Wheaton residents will vote on a nonbinding referendum that will ask whether the city should kick in $150,000 a year to help fund the Wheaton Grand. It’s a move that has drawn some criticism because the referendum does not specify where the money will come from or how long it will be necessary.

Molenhouse, however, said the focus should be on letting developers know the theater will be a priority.

“Let them know that we are interested in working with you and show us what you have got,” he said.