By Giles Morris
Daily News Staff

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The city of Rhinelander is considering reorganizing the museum complex at Pioneer Park in an effort to take a bigger role in developing the site to draw more tourists and residents.

On Wednesday, City Administrator Bill Bell met with leadership from the five museums housed at the city park and gained approval for the scheme, which would see all five museums incorporated into the 501C-(3) held by Old Rhinelander Inc., which operates the logging museum. The reorganization would allow the museums to continue to function as independent entities but also give them the ability to pursue fundraising efforts in common. Under the new plan, the city would take over control of personnel and maintenance costs that have been undertaken by volunteers until now.

The museum reorganization will be discussed at the Jan. 26 Parks, Buildings and Grounds Committee meeting chaired by councilwoman Sherry Belliveau.

Bell said the new arrangement will take pressure off the organizations’ volunteer staffs as well as streamline the city’s relationship with the museums, which operate on city land.

“The need’s there because a lot of the volunteers are elderly and they’ve been getting burnt out and we realized the best way to help out the effort is take over the staffing,” said Bell.

Lily Kongslien, who coordinates the rural school museum and will also take over the role of coordinating the CCC museum, said the plan would provide a welcome improvement.

“We wanted this,” Kongslien said. “I’m happy about it and I hope it goes through.”

Under the new plan, the city would pay for five full time positions to man the gift shop and the four museum complexes every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the tourist season. Each museum could decide how best to use the staff position, which should free their volunteer bases to take on long-overdue renovation and improvement projects.

Bell said the city will also consider providing better electrical infrastructure and hot water to the facilities. Along with the agreement between the county and the city to pursue moving the county fair to Pioneer Park, the museum reorganization is an effort to make the site more attractive to visitors.

“I think in the next two or three years Pioneer Park is going to be a real tourist attraction and for locals it will be a place where they can walk or ride their bike to the park and enjoy themselves,” Bell said.

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