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Stafford plans for centrally located visitor center and museum Date published: 8/15/2006 By MEGHANN COTTER
By MEGHANN COTTER
Stafford officials hope that a joint museum and visitors center can someday be a hub for all county historic sites. Plans for the attraction have taken a back seat in the last few months because of changes on the board of supervisors and other major projects and events. But a decision late last year dedicated a permanent funding source to the operation. And Tourism Director Megan Orient predicts results within the next five years. Barbara Kirby, a planning commissioner who works with that group, said committee members are hoping the facility can be built in the Courthouse area. Officials expect that section of the county to become more of a downtown complex in the next few years. Progress has been slow, she said, because for many years the museum-visitors center competed with other county departments, such as public safety and schools, for funding. "The museum is really the red-headed stepchild," she said. "It is not as needed of a facility." Stafford's tourism budget comes from the lodging tax--5 percent of all sales at local hotels. It currently totals about $1 million. Until January, just 3 percent of hotel sales went to tourism and 2 percent went in the general fund. Supervisors voted in December to put the entire 5 percent toward tourism, devoting about $400,000 annually to the museum. Orient said her office wasn't expecting that money to come until the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. And when the tourism department found out the money was available in January, officials weren't ready to use it. In the next few months, she said, the museum planning committee should resume discussions about purchasing land and hiring a permanent director. Adding a museum is expected to be a huge boost for tourism because it will present county history in one place and direct people to sites of interest. "A local museum has to be able to integrate local history, and put all the pieces together to tell the whole story of how Stafford came about," Orient said. Supervisor Paul Milde, who joined the museum planning committee since he took office in January, said he looks forward to the day that many of the county's historical artifacts can be brought out for permanent public view. Many items once found in Stafford, such as a prehistoric toad and an unusually long dinosaur, are currently housed at other museums around the country or in a storage room at the Administration Center. "For me, the visitors center is just as important as the museum," he said. "We need a nice, centrally located visitors center directing people from the highway to get them started on the journey through Stafford history." To reach MEGHANN COTTER:
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
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