Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409190021
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"If it is going to leave Martinsville, then I certainly want the opportunity for it to come here," County Administrator Elmer Hodge said. "This is an excellent place for it."
Hodge offered to give the museum a site at Explore Park or on county-owned property, along with utilities and funding - all standard parts of the county's economic-development pitch to prospective industries. He said in a letter to the state that the county would present a formal proposal if the state wished.
But the pitch to provide the museum a new home is on the back burner since a government-reform committee recommended last week that the museum remain in Martinsville.
The natural resources committee of the Governor's Commission on Government Reform was looking at the Martinsville museum and every other part of the Department of Natural Resources.
Early indications were that it would recommend moving the museum to a bigger community where it would get more visitors.
Instead, the committee recommended that the museum remain in Martinsville but lose its state agency status, meaning it would not automatically get money in the state budget. That recommendation has not been considered by the full commission.
"If it's not going to be a state museum, to me it loses some of its attraction," Hodge said.
Hodge made a pitch for Roanoke County to the governor's commission on Sept. 2, before its recommendations were released. Danville also has written to the governor's office making a pitch for the museum, and Charlottesville and Richmond are said to be interested.
But Martinsville plans to fight hard to keep the museum and keep it as a state agency with its annual $2 million state funding, said Del. Ward Armstong, D-Martinsville.
"We're in a desperate position down here," Armstrong said, with layoffs announced nearly every week. "We certainly don't expect Richmond to do everything ... but for gosh sakes, don't hinder us."
Hodge said he submitted the proposal only because he had heard the museum would be moved, not to steal it away from Martinsville.
"If it became a choice of harming Martinsville, for my purposes, that's not something we would do," Hodge said. "If it is going to leave Martinsville, then I certainly want the opportunity for it to come here. This is an excellent place for it."
Explore Park Director Rupert Cutler agreed. There was an attempt last winter to combine Explore, the museum and other state natural-resource agencies, but the idea was opposed in Martinsville and legislation never was submitted.
"Explore's the logical place for it if it's going to be in Roanoke County," Cutler said. "The key element of Explore is we've got direct access off the Blue Ridge Parkway."
Ken Schutz, executive director of the Science Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, said having another museum in the Roanoke Valley could only help.
"I think it would be a great addition to have that kind of sister institution right down the road," he said.
No community may be able to afford the museum if it's turned into a nonprofit organization, Executive Director Connie Gendron said.
"If it reverted to nonprofit, we'd have to change the mission and function tremendously," she said. "The chances of it working as a private organization are slim to none."
The museum's mission is "hard research" and to be a "museum without walls," with traveling exhibits that go around the state, Armstrong said. So the low attendance figures at the site in Martinsville are misleading, he said.
In mid-August, moving the museum was going to be the strike force committee's recommendation, said Danville Mayor Seward Anderson, chairman of the museum's board of trustees. So his city also made a bid for it.
But between mid-August and Sept. 7, when the committee made its recommendations, that had changed.
Robert Lee, a lawyer and chairman of the committee, said members "couldn't make a recommendation as to where it should be."
He also pointed out that all the other museums in Virginia are run by the Department of Education and suggested that if Martinsville or other communities could not afford to fund the Museum of Natural History, it could be transferred to that department.
The full strike force meets Sept. 28 in Richmond to come up with a draft set of recommendations. It then will hold four public hearings around the state - including in Roanoke on Oct. 11 - on the draft recommendations.
by CNB