Council delays payment to Riverside History Center

    Representatives of the Riverside History Center asked for money from the Riverside City Council Monday night. After much deliberation, the council voted down a motion to give the group $10,000. Councilors Ralph Schnoebelen and Rodney Waldschmidt voted for the motion while Betty Kaalberg, Kevin Kiene and Todd Yahnke voted against it.

    Phil Richman and Mary Jane Stumpf spoke on behalf of the history center. They requested between $5,000 to $7,000 from the hotel/motel tax fund that they could use to pay rent and utilities for the remainder of the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The history center has just under $11,000 left in its budget for the fiscal year after beginning the year with $16,000 (about half of which was carried over from last year).

    City Administrator Tina Thomas said that if the history center wants a single large check from the city, it would have to show the city how it is spending the money. Currently, a member of the history center purchases an item and is later reimbursed by the city.

Ultimately, the council asked Thomas to write an agreement between the council and the history center whereby the history center shows its books to the council on a regular basis, such as once per quarter. This would allow the council to monitor the history center?s finances without the reimbursement process. The councilors and the history center representatives agreed to discuss the matter further at the next council meeting on Jan. 3. 

The Riverside History Center is located in a section of the former Kwik ?n? EZ store, across the street from the Senior Village. The history center opened in May 2008 thanks to money from the Riverside Area Community Club (RACC). Until November of this year, the RACC paid the history center?s electric and gas bills and part of its rent, which is $900 a month for 1200 square feet.

    Richman and Stumpf said the history center needed money from the city as matching funds for its $10,000 grant from the Riverboat Foundation. They also said they were not allowed to use their Riverboat grant to pay for operating expenses (such as rent and utilities), but rather only for museum displays. Stumpf said that if the city could cover its operating expenses, they could use the Riverboat money to purchase locked display cases to showcase more of the museum?s memorabilia now in storage. 

Richman and Stumpf added that they wanted to move the history center from one part of the Kwik ?n? EZ building to a much larger part, and that this would not change their rent. Their space would increase by 50 percent, from 1200 square feet to 1800 square feet.   

For the full story, see the Dec. 21 edition of The Washington Evening Journal