No one talking about Arizona Experience Museum debacle

Cronkite News recently explored the status of the Arizona Experience Museum. No one involved in the destruction of the mineral museum will talk, not the Governors office, not the Arizona Historical Society, and not the Arizona Centennial Commission.

Meanwhile, visitors still arrive at the old mineral museum building, bringing there children and grandchildren.  They are not happy to find the doors locked.

They are also not happy about the mineral museum budget being soaked up by the AHS each year for no apparent purpose.HS

 Reference:

Transformation of mineral museum stalled, supporters look for answers

Kelsa Wasung

Cronkite News, April 25, 2015

http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/04/transformation-of-mineral-museum-stalled-supporters-look-for-answers/

Phoenix museums and education

Salt River Project, Valley of the Sun United Way, and Southwest Human Development are corporate sponsors for the new Phoenix Great Start Pilot Program.  The program enables staff in the Balsz school district to give children a Passport to Culture and Education.  It is intended to broaden children’s experiences in preparation for school, and thereby facilitate learning. Said Mayor Greg Stanton “A child’s earliest experiences in life are important for their long term well being.”

The program will enable children to visit the Phoenix Zoo, Arizona Science Center, Pueblo Grande Museum, Children’s Museum of Phoenix, Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center, Heard Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and Japanese Friendship Garden.

The currently closed Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum would have been a prime candidate for inclusion in the program. It was highly regarded for its educational value and admitted children for free. School busses were once lined up behind the museum nearly every day during the school year. Conspicuously excluded from the program is the AHS Marley Center Museum (AKA History Museum at Papago Park) in Tempe.

Why do Arizona taxpayers provide millions of dollars per year to the Arizona Historical Society  to operate a museum that hardly anyone visits and that the local community does not regard as having significant educational value?

Reference:

Phoenix museum subsidy aids some low-income kids

Eugene Scott

The Arizona Republic, Monday, 4.29.2013, page B1

Museum visitors vote with their feet

The figure below shows what services taxpayers receive from the AHS in exchange for the multimillion dollar annual budget. The annual statewide attendance for all AHS museums is shown from FY 2003 through 2012.

 The text below the graph states that the dramatic increase in FY2011 was due to operation of the Centennial Museum.  That is not correct. There was no Centennial Museum. The theme selected for the Centennial Museum was so absurd that only one Arizona company made a donation. The doors never opened.

The spike in attendance was actually caused by visitors to the mineral museum that operated in the building at the time it was reassigned to the AHS for the Centennial Museum. The mineral museum, by itself, attracted more visitors than all the AHS museums in Tucson, Tempe, Yuma, and Flagstaff.

The 80,000 visitors in FY 2011 were largely due to mineral museum attendance prior to the closing in April of 2011 (fiscal years do not match calendar years).  Subsequent to the closing, potential visitors did not choose to visit any of the remaining AHS museums. At the end of FY 2013, AHS attendance will again drop down to the approximately 30,000 level achieved in FY 2010. Or, perhaps less due to the declining trend exhibited from 2005 to 2010.

Why does the Arizona legislature continue to throw money at museums that people are clearly not interested in visiting?

Note: Admission to AHS museum is not free.  The AHS double dips by collecting both admission and an annual budget.

The Madness continues

Nearly two years ago, in April of 2011, the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum was abruptly closed. The entire staff was escorted offsite and fired, and police prevented access to the building as a contractor changed all of the locks. Children anticipating scheduled field trips were out of luck, as are visitors that still arrive at the building on a daily basis. The closing did NOT save money. As of this date, the AHS still receives funding for the mineral museum. According to the new state budget, they will receive the money next year as well.

The locked and now empty building still has a small sign in the window that says “temporarily closed for construction”.  What construction? When? Just how long is temporary?  Apparently what really happened was destruction.

Where is the state mineral collection?  Why can’t people see it, even though the taxpayers continue to fund both a building and a staff?

The AHS has now begun placing a “mineral gallery” on their website. This may be consistent with the thinking behind their centennial museum boondoggle, which suggested that a digital image of an artifact was as good as or perhaps even better than the real thing.  But, it is stupid.

Arizonians are still paying for a mineral museum, but they no longer have one. A “gallery” on a website is not a museum.

Arizona Historical Society’s ethics questioned

 Local news coverage of an AHS display (Silverbell artifacts) in Tucson has attracted the attention of the Doubtful News. The editor writes, in part, as follows:

You can’t blame the museum for wanting to cash in on the interest. But there is a lack of critical thinking here. Lost tribes of Israel? The Romans? In ARIZONA? Unlikely. And it feels icky to suggest there is something more mysterious to them. It feels unethical.

As far as I can tell, these have virtually ZERO credibility, no supporting evidence, and should have been displayed as a "famous hoax".

Perhaps the display is innocent, but anyone wishing to evaluate the ethics of the AHS should review the hostile takeover and destruction of the once top rated Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum.  The original June 5^th, 2010 post on this blog would be a good place to start.

Reference:

Museum trying to cash in on Silverbell artifact popularity

March 7, 2013, By idoubtit

http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/03/museum-trying-to-cash-in-on-silverbell-artifact-popularity/

Governor Mofford speaks out on mineral museum mess

While is office, Governor Mofford was a mineral museum supporter. Prior posts have explained how she and Polly Rosembaum supported the move from the original location on the state fairgrounds to the larger facility on Washington Street.

In a My Turn editorial in the Monday, March 25^th Arizona Republic, Governor Mofford calls for the restoration of “one of the state’s most valued museums”.  It was a “vital educational tool” for Arizona’s children.

It is time for Arizona’s legislature to heed Governor Mofford’s call for action and fix the mess they made during ill conceived planning for the State centennial.  Why continue depriving students of a lifetime learning experience?

 Reference:

State mining museum was a vital educational tool

By Rose Mofford Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:33 PM

http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20130314state-mining-museum-vital-educational-tool.html

Arizona Historical Society dabbles in science

In over a century, the AHS has never produced a top rated museum. In spite of multimillion dollar budgets, along with free rent, attendance at its museums is so pitifully low that they refuse to disclose attendance numbers.  Then, in 2011, a political anomaly gave them control of a top rated museum, the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum. That they promptly destroyed, along with its popular earth science programs for K-12 students.  Today, the building is an empty shell.

However, the AHS is still receiving the state funding that formerly supported the mineral museum. They are using it to conduct watered down science programs at, of all places, the Marley Center Museum in Tempe.  The Marley itself has such an ugly history of failure that the AHS does not even use its real name. They are promoting their “science” programs using the alias of the “AHS Museum at Papago Park”. The AHS is currently promoting a June 24^th through June 28^th event entitled; “Making Connections: Science and Social Studies”. Mixing science with social studies looks like an excellent way to firm up Arizona’s grip on last place (nationally) in science education.

How long will Arizona allow this nonsense to continue? This is not a responsible use of public funds.