THE LANDMARK VIEW
The Riverside village board bought itself some time on Monday night, when trustees voted to hire a part-time director for the Riverside Historical Museum. The deal is essentially a one-year stop-gap measure to keep the museum’s collection maintained and keep the museum itself staffed so it can respond to requests from researchers and those generally interested in Riverside’s history.
While we’d like to believe that the museum’s staffing problem has been solved by the hire, the future direction of the museum seems as foggy as ever. If the village’s financial situation is as challenging as advertised over the next several years, it’s likely that the museum director position would be viewed as an extravagance and put on the chopping block.
Even if the village were to have made the hire a permanent one on Monday, that really doesn’t protect the position down the road. The museum director is not like the police chief; it can be waved away in a budgetary instant.
It seems to us the only way to guarantee the future of the facility is for the museum to become a self-sustaining entity. Trustee John Scully mentioned the possibility of the museum attaining 501c3 status. That is probably the direction in which the Riverside Historical Commission should start moving.
The museum could use the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest as an example to follow. That society is completely independent of the Village of Oak Park. It is a member-based organization, in which several hundred members pay annual dues. The society hosts several benefit events, such as housewalks, each year. They also have an annual fundraising appeal, accept individual tax-deductible gifts and seek grants from private and public institutions.
Getting a 501c3 designation would allow the organization to seek grants it presently cannot compete for. It would also make donating cash gifts to the museum more attractive, since they would be tax deductible.
If the Riverside Historical Museum is an institution worth maintaining-and even expanding-then the museum is going to have to move beyond the Historical Commission and the village board for its survival. It seems clear that the village board is, at best, a reluctant museum proprietor.
And although the museum has now been put under the direction of the Recreation Department, we don’t believe that department is the best spot for the museum for the long term. The way it’s set up now, the museum is simply an additional burden for both the board and the Recreation Department.
While the setup may maintain the status quo, it won’t lend itself to expansion of the museum or consistency in the director’s position.
Now that the Historical Commission is effectively out of the museum direction business, it should begin investigating just how to keep this important historical resource alive for future generations.