Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993 TAG: 9304140027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
EXPLORE HOPING STATE WILL FUND OPERATIONS
The Explore Park's governing body reaffirmed its support of the project Tuesday and began wrestling with the question of how to pay for the park after the business leaders who founded it quit paying the operating expenses next year.The first move: Appoint a committee of big guns to study alternatives - and, by the looks of the group, lobby legislators around Virginia for state funding.
Heading the committee will be Clifford Cutchins of Norfolk, the retired chairman of what used to be Sovran Bank. Joining him will be Carey Crane, a Northern Virginia businessman whose family is prominent in environmental causes, and former Roanoke College President Norman Fintel.
Cutchins said he was unclear precisely what the committee would do, aside from report back in July to the full 13-member state board governing Explore on where to find the $1 million necessary each year to run the living-history park once it opens to the public next spring.
But it's no coincidence that two of the three members are from outside the Roanoke Valley - and boast connections with political leaders in the state capital and elsewhere.
"It's experience and contacts," said Explore's environmental director, Rupert Cutler. The committee's job, he said, likely will include "arranging meetings with members of the General Assembly from other parts of the state and renew the case for Explore as a bona fide state project."
The move comes as Explore, struggling to build even a modest version of the once-ambitious frontier history park, faces a new cash crunch - this time from its founders.
Under its contract with the state board that owns the park, the River Foundation - the nonprofit group of Roanoke Valley leaders who conceived the project in 1985 and have kept it afloat financially - is responsible for raising the money and running the project through 1996.
But lately, the foundation has become concerned on three fronts:
There's little money being raised to build the park's exhibits. The big national donors expected to bankroll the project haven't materialized, and most of the money raised locally gets eaten up by the $450,000-a-year operating expenses.
The foundation is now effectively subsidizing the operations of a state park, and those expenses are likely to double soon. The park already is open to visiting school groups, which means the foundation has to hire costumed guides to re-enact frontier life.
To open to the public next year as planned, Cutler says, "would mean doubling the size of the staff, which would mean doubling the size of the budget" - to $1 million per year.
Two of the foundation's key givers are in their 80s, and Fintel - a member of both the foundation and the state board - has repeatedly warned that Explore can't count on them to carry the park forever.
Spurred by these developments, the River Foundation on Tuesday served formal notice to the Virginia Recreational Facility Authority that it intends to sever the current contract in July 1994 and seeks "alternative ways to finance the operation of the park."
Put another way, the River Foundation wants someone else - such as the state - to start paying the park's operating expenses so the money it raises can go strictly toward construction, which would speed up work on the $15 million first phase.
The move - which had been expected - prompted a lively discussion among some authority members, who reiterated their support for the project.
"These are good growing pains," said board member Debra Holdren of Vinton. "I get more excited every time I come out here."
Instead of meeting in the project's offices downtown, Explore's governing body met in the reassembled 18th century farmhouse at the park, where board members were warmed by a crackling fire and had to speak over the steady ring of hammer-blows from a barn under construction.
Saying he wanted to stir discussion and "a new sense of urgency and enthusiasm," board member Kenneth King of Roanoke threw out six possible alternatives. Among them: Asking the River Foundation to honor the contract, or asking the River Foundation to commit to a specific contribution for construction.
Fintel assured King the River Foundation wasn't backing out of the project or losing its confidence. Instead, Fintel said, the foundation merely wants to concentrate on raising money for construction and not have to worry about running the park day-to-day.
King said he was satisfied on that score. But King - the most outspoken member on a board that often goes through its agenda without a murmur - also sought to squelch Cutler's suggestion that Explore seek regular state funding by becoming a full-fledged state agency.
Donors are less likely to contribute, King warned, if Explore is seen as just another government agency.
To sort out the options, board chairman Larry Hamlar of Roanoke turned to Cutchins, Crane and Fintel - three board members with experience in fund raising, both public and private.
"Cliff Cutchins is a heavy-duty guy; he's got a lot of respect in the state," Cutler said. "Obviously, he has considerable contacts in Richmond. . . . Carey Crane represents experience with legislators, too." He heads a company involved in building a privately owned toll road near Washington Dulles International Airport that required state approval.
Finally, Cutler noted, Fintel was lauded as a star fund-raiser at Roanoke College.
As Explore searches for government funding, other board members are expected to join in. "Probably it will come down to holding hands with the necessary legislators to get and retain the necessary funding," said board member Ebo Fauber of Bedford County. "These are political appointments, after all, so you've got to remember there's a connection somewhere."