Museum
pinches pennies to get to spring opening
League City Board looks to volunteers, donations to finish
long-awaited project
By SARA McDONALD The Daily News
Supporters of a $2 million city museum that has faced years
of criticism for runaway costs ironed out a plan to keep
volatile project away from the city council - which once
considered capping spending on the project and dumping it
altogether. The board and the city staff are developing a
plan to cut costs and pay for requests that were originally
going to go to the council for approval. - The Butler
Longhorn Museum advisory board will cash in on all the
volunteer work it can find to keep the project under budget
and on schedule for a "soft" spring opening.
"We struggled for a long time and didn't know where we were
going with it," board member Jaime DeFabio said. "Were just
trying to get it finished."
The museum, housed in a historic home the city bought in
2002, will honor the Butler Longhorn Cattle bloodline and
early League City settlers.
Although the museum was expected to open more than four
years ago, the project switched hands, visions for it
changed and the building sat empty for nearly a year while
the council debated whether to give more money for
renovations.
Opening dates were announced and passed with no opening.
Getting to this spring's opening date - one that museum
curator Jennifer Wycoff-van der Wal said would open the
facility to only a few of the exhibits that the museum will
eventually include - means that the lighting, landscaping
and exhibit work will come from donations given at
fundraisers and raised by supporters.
Garden clubs will plant the flowers, herb gardens and
shrubs that match what would have been at a ranch house of
the 1880s - a plan drawn up free of charge by a Bacliff
landscaping company.
The museum's support
group will also solicit sponsorships from local businesses
and residents.
In one case, a mural depicting early League City life will
include what Wycoff-van der Wal said would be an authentic
drawing of the Wells Fargo stagecoaches that the company
actually used in League City at the time. That artists'
work was paid for by the bank's League City branch.
It's savings such as those and other cost-cutting methods
that should bring the project within its budget, board
members said.
In November, the museum requested more money from the
council to pay for interior and exterior lighting.
Instead, the city is trying to find other ways to pay for
the lighting.
In a meeting with the museum's advisory board this week,
City Administrator Chris Reed and Parks Director Chien Wei
told the board they'd supply equipment and labor for
lighting inside and outside the museum.
How the city will pay for that is uncertain, Reed said. It
could come from fundraising dollars, grants or money
leftover from construction costs.
The city will buy the equipment and will have city
maintenance staff or volunteers install it, Reed said.
Council member Chris Samuelson said he wanted to make sure
the project wasn't being funded past what the council had
approved.
"If they're scheming to get dollars out of the back door of
city hail, council needs to be made aware," he said.
"That's abusing the system."
Once the lighting is in, exhibits will start going up,
Wycoff-van der Wal said.
She said she's tapped into support for the museum by
contacting artists eager to display their work Those
gallery showings will be the first time the museum opens
for visitors and an attempt to drive museum membership.
Council member Tim Paulissen said he has always supported
the museum, but said ft was time for taxpayers to stop
spending money on it.
"I am a supporter of the museum, but as far as where the
money comes form, that's a different story," Paulissen
said, adding he supports using a portion of hotel taxes to
finish the work.
Spray paint artist Skeez 181 and another artist created a
larger mural on the first floor of the Butler Longhorn
Museum in League City.
