Friday, December 05, 2008
Editorial: A generous offer at a bad time
Roanoke wants a good transportation museum. The one it has needs money. But is it the time to get it?
From the RoundTable blog
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The railroads built Roanoke.
Even today, decades after Norfolk & Western became part of Norfolk Southern and put its corporate headquarters on a train out of town, Roanoke bears the imprint of its rail heritage proudly. It is the right place in Virginia for a major railroad museum.
Yet the Virginia Transportation Museum, sitting downtown along tracks that run like a spine through the city, remains woefully underdeveloped.
Now, NS Chairman Wick Moorman has made a surprising and generous offer from the railroad to contribute $1 million for museum capital and operations expenses. But the offer presents more than an opportunity. It presents a financial challenge in already challenging times.
The museum will get the money if it raises another $2 million -- half, Executive Director Bev Fitzpatrick says, from local governments in the Roanoke Valley, half from the private sector. Roanoke Mayor David Bowers already has jumped aboard with a letter to fellow city council members asking for a commitment of $500,000 to $1 million.
We understand his enthusiasm. A suddenly well-kept and eventually extensive transportation collection would be a plum for the Roanoke Valley. A major donor like NS could help put the museum on the tourism map.
In these dire economic times, though, municipalities are facing state funding cuts -- even, most likely, to K-12 education. The excellent Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke has not yet raised all the funds it needs to ensure ongoing success. And Center in the Square waits in the wings for a costly, needed makeover.
The transportation museum, meanwhile, is beset by problems that might begin with lack of funding but don't end there. A scathing consultant's report issued early this year noted, among a host of deficiencies, that the troubled museum has lost its connections with the community -- in a railroad town.
To attract donors, public and private, the museum will have to show it has the kind of strong, visionary leadership needed to turn itself around.
Only then should localities look hard at their resources and put any request for museum funding in line with other priorities.
