City Commission - Regular Meeting

Um, and before I do get started, I will introduce what staff we have here. Um, Josh Morris is our curator of exhibits. Uh, John Clintworth is curator of education. Maggie von is our registar. Rosa. Rosa de la Cruz is right behind me. Is Jen in here? No,

I didn't see her come. Okay. And then Judy Kushnika is one of our museum assistants and the store coordinator. So, um I want to thank you all uh for coming here today to learn more about the Smoky Hill Museum. Uh museums hold a rare and valuable position, especially at this time when trusted public institutions is fragile. According to if I can ah there we go. According to a study by Wilining Consulting, people trust museums. They trust them for their genuine artifacts and fact-based, authentic, researchdriven information. Museums are places where people still expect to learn something new and where curiosity can thrive and where people can pause, reflect, and listen. Um, they can encounter ideas different from their own at museums. Um, you may ask, why is this important? People are spending more and more time on electronic devices and algorithms bombard them with content that confirms their views, not always showing the full story, and AI blurs what is real. Museums, in contrast, invite visitors to think together about complex issues, whether through exhibition conversations or community partnerships. They help nurture the habits of curiosity, curiosity and empathy that democracy depends on. National public opinion polling shows that 97% of adults see museums as a vital educational asset to their community and 92% of adults view museums as nonpartisan sources of information. These findings place museums among the

most trusted institutions in American life just behind family and friends. And museums teach what AI cannot. Uh critical thinking and contextual nuance by looking closely, asking questions, and trying to make sense of what is right in front of us in a museum. We are learning how to have original thoughts, consider our place in the world, and reflect on our own personalities, and have our own experiences. So, you could say that museums, the Smoky Hill Museum, is a community catalyst that encourages cultural engagement, shared identity, and social connection. It does this through its mission to connect people to universally shared stories, unleashing the power of local history to engage, inspire, and surprise. In order to accomplish this mission, the museum relies on the preservation, the education, and the exhibition of Salina's history. At issue now is the problem that has been brewing for decades. a lack of space as you all saw uh to fulfill this mission. Uh before the renovation of the main galleries in 2006, we averaged about 10,400 visitors annually with about 5,400 coming for specific programming. Now 20 years later, we average about 20,000 people per year with about 10,500 attending specific programs. That's a 93% increase in visitors over the 20 years and 95% increase in educational programming.

Quick quick question. So if I look at 2025, is that over 30,000 total visitors or is that No, that's combined. That would be uh the 10,000 comes out of that 20,000. Yeah.

Very good. With that growth, it is increasingly difficult to meet the needs to preserve, educate and exhibit Salina's story for our citizens. The museum is running low of room uh out of room as you saw. Um artifact storage is reaching capacity. There is no dedicated educational or event space and there is insufficient exhibit space and workshop space. The preservation of Salena's objects is the most critical need. Artifact storage is so full that it is putting objects in harm's way as you saw with those items still where a pipe could break. Um and as called out in our last accreditation report that flooding uh we had two flooding incidents in 2021 due to system breakages and they uh called out major concerns over that issue. As you can see the diagram on the floor is the flooding uh from 2021 in February. We had a frozen pipe that burst and flooded the basement. Unfortunately, our water sensors were placed too high, so we didn't get the call until about 60% of the basement was flooded. Um, we called in his staff, uh, Brad came in, Josh came in. Um, all staff came in, as well as

spouses, spouses and building maintenance people to help try to get that flooding under control. And as you can see, uh, the first the one on your left shows the water that was on the floor. Uh, the other two showed the May 2021 incident. Uh, the storm pipe. There you can see water um on the objects below. Um, we had to pull all the objects off of those shelving and put them on tables throughout collections area to dry. um and hopefully still be able to uh keep uh but there were a number that had to be in de accession due to too much damage.

Can can you talk about accreditation just a little bit? What does that mean and how significant is that that we're accredited? Accreditation is that's a really good question. Accreditation um is a peerreview process uh that is done and involves a self-study process and it just shows that we are up to industry standards um for museums and for public service uh because they also have public service parts in there on how we uh show the story to our citizens and so forth. Um

the Smoky Hill Museum is one of 11 or 12 11 accredited nationally accredited museums in the state of Kansas. Yeah. The other uh Salina does have two. The art center um also well they just went through reacredititation. Um I believe they got um I don't know if they published that or not but I know they got it. I think they have a verbal they have a verbal that they're the formal report isn't back yet I think. Yeah. Any other questions on accreditation? Okay.

It it's similar to the the same accreditations that are police, fire. I mean, it's it's a higher authority that has a measurement of the highest standards of performance. Um, and so being one of 11 in the state puts us in a a very How many museums are in the state of Kansas? Over 400. Yeah. I mean to get and we've been accredited since 1996 I believe is it something like 4% of museums are accredited small number

approximately 4% there's I think it's now reaching to about a thousand museums throughout the country are accredited and then in addition to the flooding issues uh you saw that we do have a lack of storage space um this shows a side by side of the collections in 1989 and approximately the same location in 2026. Um, we've had to add more storage racks as well as storing items in the aisle. And if you can consider that the museum has approximately 38,000 artifacts, um this collection grows by about 2% a year um from donations. Um that may not sound like much, but when you take 2% of 38,000 that adds up. Um and we estimate in about 5 to 10 years that we may not be able to take any more donations if we if the current state. Um, we are maximizing existing storage as we can by rehousing and boxing smaller artifacts. Uh, you saw that when we first got down into the basement. Uh, Maggie is rehousing some glassware to make sure it's uh stored properly, but also to gain some space that we can. Um, and it's but it's still very hard to find a place for any large items to go. Um, and there's always a game of Tetris going on in collections. Find a spot for one. Where do you move what was there to another? And, um, eventually try to get it all in. Um, and we are turning items away. Uh, Maggie informed me that we have about room for the largest items

that we should be taking from this point on shouldn't be any larger than 12 x 12 in. Um we have as you saw that model airplane on the file cabinets in her office. We have exceeded that. Um but um we have had to uh turn away an item. We had a United States Postal Clerk station. Someone was willing to purchase that and give it to the museum, but we had to turn that away because we had absolutely no place to put it. Um it did relate to Salina Selen County which is one of the criteria that objects have to have in order to be considered for uh the collection. Um and we are very hesitant to take any furnishings, agricultural items, framed works of art or in general like I said anything over about 12 x 12 in. Um but we do try to continue and collect and preserve our community story. um as simply as best as we can. Um but we just don't have the adequate space to continue much longer. Um as based on conversations uh staff has had with donors, uh it's possible we could be seeing even more donations wanting to come through our doors as families, younger generations are just not wanting to retain family heirlooms. Um, so the donors are looking to museums to as a place to store their legacy and have it continue on. Um, we are anticipating high volume as the boomers start to downsize, which they're already doing that somewhat. Um, and we've had, I think last year was our highest donation year. Where's Maggie?

Right back.

Oh, right there. wasn't that one of our larger donation years was uh last year and then programming and event space. Um what we do is with no dedicated educational spaces um this is a major challenge just not for the staff but for the visitors and for the people here for the program. uh school groups have to be downsized into smaller broken into even smaller groups of about 15 in order to fit uh like in the space I showed you by the dugout. Um we often have that and then another activity going on in another part of the gallery um so that we can accommodate just a regulariz classroom. And then we have uh museum visitors who have who often leave once a school group is here just because of the noise and that they can't get to seeing any of the exhibits. Uh this particular activity takes up the entire Merkantiel portion of our exhibit. Um they're packing a wagon to head west. Um that's during our Kansas Day programming which is a week-long program. So we have visitors fortunately January is a lower month. Um, but we have visitors who uh can't see all of the exhibits for at least a week.

Well, you have 900 to a thousand kids come through just for that particular programming.

And then um because we have to break the groups into smaller sections, um it takes longer to set up and tear down. It takes more staff members and it takes more volunteers in order to do continual programming in two different spaces. Um we average about 64 programs annually and it takes about 256 man hours just to prepare for those groups, set up, take down and give the programming. Um, with dedicated spaces, this time would be cut in half or even less and allow us to spend more time giving and developing more programming. Ah, oh, and this particular one shows uh the tight spaces we have uh our popular first Thursday program. Um the one good thing that came out of COVID was Zoom because we were overflowing uh from our lobby. People are actually sitting in the gallery not even being able to see the speaker to come and hear those particular programs. Um, now we at least get uh the lobby's still full, but people can tune in on Zoom um as well because we average about 165 people per program on our first Thursdays. And then almost daily we have some visitor ask is there more to see? They are enjoying the gallery so much. They want to see more exhibits and they look at the size of the building and expect more gallery spaces uh which we just can't provide. Um to get more of Salina's story and artifacts out to the public to see. I don't know if you all heard that we do change out artifacts throughout the

gallery on a yearly basis uh to get more items out for the public to view. Um, so we have a a scheduled rotation um for artifacts. Um, but even that only about 2% of our collection is ever on exhibit at any given time. And the building and preparation of new exhibits have always been a challenge. Um, you saw that uh down in the basement as well. Uh, the current workshop is small and cramped. Uh Josh is a good use takes a good use of his space that he does have um using the boiler room as well. Um but this does create some potentially unsafe um working conditions as those components then have to be moved back up uh that three-foot step uh that you saw. Um we do have guard rails that go in when it's not stuff isn't being used. We just didn't have them in today. Um that's also another potentially unsafe. somebody opens the door and thinks they can walk straight in, uh, they could fall. Um, but we, he typically does try to get those back up when he's not in there using the space. Let's see. Do I have another um, assessment in 2018? I should take Let me Excuse me. This issue has been growing for decades and we've known that. In 2008, our strategic plan uh was to find adequate storage. That's when we started uh boxing and condensing smaller items um in the same amount of space. Um we even built a storage unit on the back of the loading dock for non um artifact storage, more for event storage. Um as well as upgraded the boiler room. uh we had

asbestous removed from around the boiler and piping in there so that if wasn't any danger. Um in 2018 we went a step further and examined whether changes to the actual usage of the building made any difference. Uh we three different scenarios were developed um highlighting different things. The one that shows the most artifact storage um only led to finding about 1 795 square ft about 20% more storage. That's the yellow you see. And those particular spaces in the building are this room and the other small uh conference room. Uh those would both be if those were both turned into storage. That's what um we could fit in those. And this would be at a so this would be at a loss of some educational space. Couldn't hold commission meetings over here um in the future. and would not allow for any additional um visitor upgrades to collections. Um this would purely be adding more space for storage. Um and we estimate within about another 10 to 15 years we'd be right back with the same discussion. What do we do with the stuff because we're full. Um so with the idea of renovating and reconfiguring the current space thoroughly uh explored because other scenarios had more education space but less storage or more exhibit space and less storage. Um it was a give and take of one or the other. We couldn't do all three. Susan, I might for commissioner's benefit. Um before the friends were enlisted to kind of help with this vision and and the museum staff was assessing, we looked at many scenarios

including relocating the arts and humanities offices out, taking over the entire building, finding a space for for us to do our administrative work, operate as two separate divisions, and even with that um the amount of needed space for that both in in the immediate and the future for education, for programming, for storage, and for uh exhibition preparation and and building. Uh it wasn't going to it wasn't close to adequate to what the needs are are. So, we we did some due diligence on on a number of different possible solutions.

Right. I'm glad you brought that up. Uh the second image is the first floor. It show the two green areas are two office spaces we went by. Um those could be turned into education space if we did kick a the arts division out of the building and took over their offices for museum offices. So it was basically it was determined that any renovation or reconfiguring of current space would be just a stop gap. um solution to the critical collection storage issue um and be a band-aid approach. Like I said, we'd have to revisit again in another 10 to 15 years. Um I already addressed the additional education space if we kicked out A&H. Um so the strategic recommendation was to expand. Um the accreditation site visit that we had in just recently in 2023 came to that same conclusion and recommended expansion. Uh the report stated facility expansion to accommodate safe storage of collections and programmatic educational space is necessary for long-term sustainability. So in January of 2024, the friends retained Jones Gillum Ren's architects to develop an initial floor plan and elevations for an expansion. This expansion would add an additional 15,700 square ft and renovate 3,200 square ft of the existing space. The benefits of an expansion would ensure the long-term preservation um of valuable artifacts by increasing storage space by approximately 75%. While mitigating the risk of damage from

flooding, that would give us room to move items away from those pipes in the running through collections. It would add approximately 2500 square feet dedicated to education and event space. And this is a rendering of um that event space. Um it would also include two classrooms while keeping the existing two meeting rooms on the second floor. It would also add about 2400 square ft of exhibit space for more a comprehensive presentation of Solina's history and feature permanent exhibits. um adaptable space for traveling displays and more room to stage larger items. Um in addition to moving the workshop away from collection storage and um making it all one location as opposed split across different rooms. Additional benefits would include having a space for community use um which would be that same kind of uh where that that first uh elevation or rendering showed it as a lecture hall, it could be turned into a community space. Um we we would also include a larger, more integrated kitchen um which would improve and expand revenue generating events uh that could be sponsored here at the museum. It would include larger restrooms, more storage area for event furniture and equipment, and consolidate offices, museum office, add a private meeting space, and offer dedicated space for volunteers. Renovation upgrades to the first floor would enrich guest experiences through interactive exhibits, immersive experiences, and well-maintained

collections. Susan, you might take a second for the benefit of the commissioners and orient them to what they're seeing uh from the original building. Not No, the one you were on is fine. Um but

that is looking from a street towards our parking lot. The ren the expansion would take over the parking lot behind the museum um and encompass the loading dock um that has been uh plans preliminary plans have been presented to the state um and they said that would those plans would work uh for our to be able to maintain our national historic recognition as a historic post office as well. um where that door is and the black part would be leading onto the current loading dock which they say we cannot get rid of. That would be incorporated into some exhibit space as well as that expandable um audience space uh for presentations and then go into um another exhibit on the main floor. The workshop would be on the main floor and then there'd be a second exhibit space up on the second floor by the museum offices. Of course, you're probably all asking what would this cost? Um the cost to build an expansion, the expansion part is expected to be $10.9 million. The friends would also raise an additional 1.5 million for programming and strategic reserves. Um, and is all of this feasible? Well, the friends did hire in October 2024 a firm out of Kansas City, uh, Connecticut to do a feasibility study. Uh they found that the campaign was feasible and it was recommended that the friends pursue a public private partnership with the city to because that support from the city would go a long way toward building donor confidence and motivation for

donors to give to the museum. The museums as you can see from this slide are fully vest invested in seeing this project come about. In addition to the feasibility report, uh they paid 30,000 to hire the architect for renderings and floor plans. And they have also retained CKA fundraising to provide fundraising coaching um to facilitate uh the fundraising that the friends would need to do to help with their portion of the project. So, at this point, the friends have earmarked uh $217,000 in addition to any out-ofpocket expenses they also applied. And then at the end of March, the friends are also uh going to be um applying for a $200,000 in community tax credits um because that program is open right now and we could uh hopefully get an additional 200 200,000 uh to offset fundraising from other members of the community. I can explain more if anyone doesn't know what community tax credits are. The timeline for this would be ideally to have the city pledge funding um hopefully by this summer during their strategic planning session uh to encourage private giving. Uh the private ask would hopefully be completed by the end of 2028. Um during this time staff is actually right now is working on the design and renovation of the main gallery because that gallery has been in place for uh 15 years at least somewhere in there. 2000 Yeah.

20 years. 20 years. 20 years.

Um and hopefully the architect could then finish uh drawings by 2029. This would allow construction to begin early 2030 and a complete project with new galleries uh could open in 2032. And this is ideal. As I said, you're probably asking why now? Um as you've seen, artifact storage is reaching capacity. Um estimated to run out in 5 to 10 years. In addition, the museum is due for its next reacredititation um in 2032. Uh the site report documents uh that I put in your packets as well show that the department director, city manager, and mayor are all committed to solving the issue when they were here last. Um and if we look at attendance projections, growth in visitor usage would continue to grow. Um but we are in danger of seeing a decline by not having space adequate enough to conduct the programming and showing more salina history. Um so I ask you how do we continue to collect and preserve our community's history when we simply do not have the adequate space to house it? Um expansion is not just about adding square footage. It's about ensuring we can carry out our mission in a responsible and sustainable way and keep Salina's stories growing um into the future. With that,

Susan, before um we turn it to the commissioners for questions to either Susan or her staff, um I told the city manager I was going to mention or remind uh you all with an upcoming strategic planning and prioritization. Uh we're not asking for a commitment today, but we thought it would be important for you to have an in-depth look at what's happening. I'd also want to remind you that unique to any other city department, uh, arts and humanities and the Smoky Hill Museum, I think, are the only ones historically that have shown up with projects in mind and helped raise half or more in some cases of the funds necessary in terms of your investment in the capital improvements for this community, improving the quality of life for community, allowing citizens to both reflect and share on the cultural energy of this place, its history and traditions, uh, and the positive things that give back for generations to come. Being able to have the dedicated commitment of the friends of the museum and a willingness of both staff with those those private organizations to raise funds is u a unique thing and uh a great investment in those resources. knowing that some of the foundations, the individual donors and others who helped make that happen uh uh and the investment that the friends have already made uh is commendable. So with with that, I I think this would be a great time for you to ask questions about this proposed project, to give some feedback to Susan and to myself and and uh or ask

questions of the staff in terms of how they're adapting now. Okay. with the expansion. Um, how much more on that timeline of storage capacity would that would that you use? That would probably give us another 40 years because we've been in this building 40 years. And would you still limit the size of your donations or would that enable you to get some? That would enable us to get larger donations as well.

Yeah, that would be like collecting without what we've been doing over the past 40 years. And it might give us just a tad more because we came with a lot of the a good portion of the storage of items from the bath house at the um in the park when the museum moved over here. So 75% more new space um would be more than they had when they moved in. I think it's important that we preserve the the history of the city like you said the next generation. RNA as excited about it as as we are.

Yeah. And I I it's important to know history happens today and we do collect what we can uh of current day items. You saw the 1950s TV. That's not current, but it's fairly close. Um we don't just do um early 19th century items. We try to collect up into the present day. Um, as well

I I might give a couple of examples of how the museum adapted. Uh, and it was prior to CO, but the first Thursday presentations were standing room only. Um, there was probably a couple of times it was good the fire marshall wasn't there because we'd moved seating into the galleries adjacent. Uh, they they would put TV screens aimed into the exhibition area and put people in those hallways there. And then uh for a while they would run a a satellite up here. But coming to the museum and then getting sent upstairs into a sterile room, you know, with just a video rebroadcast, it isn't the same experience. And co did help with folks who just said, "Look, I I can't ever get there in time to get one of the pristine seats in the main gallery." I think there would be people who would return to the museum in person if given the opportunity. It's just that they've exceeded the comfort and the seating level of what's there. And so um it's that what the museum staff has done to adapt uh for public programming and the demands that have have been made. I I've watched that as the quality of the programs continues and the interest uh not only locally but regionally of people coming in is is high

project of this size. I'm sure the transition period is going to be very complicated with all the trappings of

major renovations, dust, etc. Um do you foresee there being a time period where we actually close the facility? I think we'd have to close the facility for I would hope as little as possible. Um, with the expansion being basically pretty much a separate building. Um, it's only punching through on the second floor to attach it to this building. Um, hopefully most of the expansion can happen and we could get some traveling exhibits in or temporary exhibits into those two new gallery spaces before we had to close down this building. um or the main floor for renovations and for a new exhibit in that particular space.

Glad you thought it through because that's that's going to be a complex issue. And um and I guess I had a question regarding when the architectural renderings um is that basement the new basement facility going to be completely self-contained or is it going to eventually attach to the It does. There is breakthrough as well so that they can access the current basement with the new basement. Yeah, thank you. It's kind of hard to see and I think it's that first Well, you you can blame my eyes on that. I didn't bring Well, it's a really small picture from a larger one, but it is.

Any other questions? If there were if there wasn't an appetite to do the the whole project, how would you divide that up? I mean, how would you restructure renovation versus new build? New building. Well, I would hope the friends are still open to raising money throughout this period and that we would probably start with the renovations of our first floor so we could get a new exhibit gallery um in place. So what is the goal of the friends? Was it the the friends? Well, ideally we would hope the city would put in at least half. So that that would be that's kind of your goals. Yes. Yeah. About six about six to seven million and then the friends would raise

that in here, right? Oh, I do have a breakdown um slide that the total I don't believe that's in our package. It's not. No, I didn't think I saw

it's not. This was I figured you might ask that question, so I put it together. Um, the remodel itself, uh, the new addition would be the remodel would be 700 or 730,000. The new addition would be about 5.9 million for the first and second floor and the basement about 6.8. So that gets into that about six to seven n uh million for the actual expansion. Uh general FF would be another 203 million. The friends would be portion would cover that uh contingency and then the exhibit re renovation programming enhancements and um strategic reserves. Oh, I didn't put that other slide in there. I had done another side but uh the friends would be about either five and a half to six and a half million with the city doing six to seven. Commissioner some of the uh and Susan you may want to talk a little bit about some of the reserves andor you uh that the friends have had. We haven't done a great job annually of showing how much uh money the friends of the museum contributes saving our our bottom line and budget. But um Susan, do you want to talk for a minute about maybe some of the things they saw on the tour and and definitely um what what the friends have contributed over recent years including I mentioned to a couple of commissioners the curiosity shop was entirely

privately raised and that was 350,000 approximately uh for that children's area. Uh they also raised about I think it was five and a half see 550,000 for the renovation of the main gallery as well. Um that was mostly privately fundraised other than some equipment and staff costs um for renovation of the entire main gallery that's currently down there. Um the friends pay about half of our street fair budget. um sometimes a little more each year. Um and in addition, they usually allow us to do some special projects or staff travel um each year as well to enhance our travel fund for conferences. And

they they bought the chairs that are used on first Thursday. They uh they bought the trailer we use to go and get building equipment or that Josh uses to go and get building equipment uh for exhibits. um bought a new refrigerator for the kitchen that we have downstairs. Textile storage, correct? Did they buy some of the textile storage cabinets or No, those have been um C uh CIP. Oh, okay. Budget budgeted items. We haven't bought one of those in probably six or seven years. Um well before Maggie got here, so she can't help me out.

Yeah. Um, but those are usually about 220,000. Yeah. Well, and you might I don't know if you mentioned what's behind them. Oh, the crates behind you are from what the Smithsonian exhibit came in. Um, we have to store those while we have the exhibit on display and they're more in the hallway um outside. There's 13 crates total to pack up and ship that traveling exhibit.

So happened that the timing of that exhibit aligned with how we utilize this space and not interfering. Another if it had been a month later, we would have had additional problems because we utilize the bulk of this room and the other store room for festival preparation. So, um, we, uh, we we do a bit of a dance in the course of the year as different exhibits come and go and and needs. We've had the travelers up here in Well, there's one currently out in the hallway as well, the World War I exhibits in the hallway.

So, any additional questions from the commissioners? I will say I do appreciate the uh the input from the friends of the of the museum. I mean, having a kind of wellthoughtout plan with a timeline that's not, hey, we need $6 million next year um helps when we have those strategic planning discussions and um we'll we'll talk about what CIP projects look like long term and we can bring that back to the city commission um during the budget process in the next couple of months and see your appetite to either add this to the list um and we'll have to look at how how that works with Debbie and finance. Um but uh certainly having a wellthoughtout plan with a good extended timeline is very helpful uh for us to plan for for for the future. So appreciate friends of the river or friends of the

friends of the museum. Friends of the museum so many friends there's too many friends. I appreciate your willingness to take a look at this and expend some funds um to come up with a good plan because I think you know if you guys just came and said, "Hey, we need money." Uh it's uh it's a lot easier to look at it and go, "Okay, hey, there's a timeline. There's a plan. it's been well thought out. Uh this is, you know, kind of future looking. Um it's easier for us to to plug that in to the program when we have those details and information. So, appreciate that. Yeah, the feasibility. Uh I don't know if you want to offer a little bit about what happened with that uh in inviting uh or the firm that that did that and the number of interviews that took place.

Yeah, we did uh at least 25 in-person interviews or they did, I should say. We didn't do it. They did at least 25 um interviews of local citizens including Travis one was young Travis Young was one uh current board members. We had someone from the greater SL community foundation um or friends members as well. Um and then there was a survey that we sent out and I think there were over 300 responses on the survey as well if I recall.

Yeah. It it isn't a pie in the sky number in terms of feasibility of coming to you and and saying if you come up with half. We believe the friends of the museum can hit their obligation uh on the private side um it's it's a reasonable expectation.

Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Oh, you're welcome. Oh, you're welcome.