County assures museum is not endangered

The DuPage County Historical Museum's appearance on a list of endangered historic places Wednesday soon found the salve of reassuring county officials.

While officials are debating the future of the museum, there is no fear about the building itself. That may be because county staffers hope to remove itself from the museum's future.

The county and Wheaton Park District have already acknowledged discussions for the park district to get involved. The solution would see the park district have offices in the museum building while maintaining some form of a museum in the remaining space.

The endangered list the museum appeared on is an annual ranking created by Landmarks Illinois, a historical preservation group.

Eiliesh Tuffy, a program director with Landmarks Illinois, said the museum made the list primarily because of two years of funding and staff cuts at the museum.

Indeed, the museum has one of the lowest levels of funding it's ever had. Last year, the county gave the museum $140,000 toward the museum's $190,000 budget.

This year, there is no budget for the museum. But the county board directed the county staff to make no layoffs or program cuts. Now the museum gets only enough money to pay its part-time staffer and keep the lights on and doors open.

That led Landmarks Illinois to its second concern -- the overall trend of suburban redevelopment of downtowns. The museum sits in Wheaton's downtown at Wesley and Main streets, which Tuffy deemed a "hot" spot for resurgence right now.

"With a faltering museum, a lack of funding at the county level and the future of the structure in question, we would want to make sure, if the museum couldn't be maintained in the site, that the county realizes that this is a building with value," Tuffy said.

County board member Grant Eckhoff said that's not a problem. There is no danger to the building itself, he said. The issue is funding and staffing the museum.

Eckhoff is a member of the museum board. As such, he's an advocate for its funding and existence. But he's been one of the few members of the county board to take that stance during the past two years of holes in the county's budgets.

"There hasn't been a tremendous outpouring of support for the museum," Eckhoff said. "I think the biggest problem was, in the '80s and '90s, when the museum had eight people with a full-time staff, they didn't do anything to go out and advertise and get themselves known. Now, trying to make up for that deficiency in such a short period of time has been problematic."

Eckhoff still favors the county funding and running the museum, but county staffers said they believe getting the park district involved is a better solution.

Phil Smith, the county's director of community services, said those discussions have reached a new priority level.

"It's my Plan A," Smith said.

In fact, Smith's staff will present the park district scenario as Plan A to the county board's development committee on April 15.

"I'm very excited about this," Smith said. "We're hopeful that this will work out."

Tuffy said Landmarks Illinois would support either fundraising training for the museum's current board or involvement by the park district as a solution.

Wheaton Park District Executive Director Mike Benard Wednesday didn't immediately respond to interview requests.