Historic Commission

Minutes of the City of Wheaton Historic Commission March 21, 2017 Meeting Held at City Hall, Wheaton, Illinois Attendance Present: Barbara Dutton (Vice Chair), Nancy Flannery (Chair), Maureen Fogerty, Tom Kay, Steph McGrath (Secretary), Frank Principe. Absent: Emelie Engling. Meeting was called to order at 7:05 pm. Public comment Visitors present: John Prendiville, Laurie Warfel, Bobby McNeily, Mark Sargis, Donna Peterson, & Amy Whitter. -Bobby McNeil, candidate for Wheaton City Council West District, is in favor of the city having a historic preservation ordinance. He believes the city can be both pro-growth and committed to historical preservation. -Various issues were brought up during public comment: the Planning & Zoning Board meeting about Loretto Convent, the I-1 zoning explanation by the city attorney, and the city council meeting vote. Nancy related how she put the convent on Craigslist and the immediate response. After only 8 hours, she received 40 responses by the city council meeting; 100 responses by the end of 24 hours. The post was flagged for removal despite being very carefully worded that it was private property and an appointment necessary; it’s unclear who instigated the removal. Nancy was featured in a CBS news story about the convent, but turned down an opportunity for a similar story by FOX. -Donna Peterson and Amy Whitter attended because of their concerns about the loss of so many of Wheaton’s historic homes recently, such as the Drummond house, the Colvin house aka Center for History, the near-miss on the Warren Wheaton’s house, Seven Gables/Loretto Convent and others, particularly in the city’s northside neighborhood. The Northside Overlay District was discussed and explained. There needs to be a better explanation of what the ordinance does and doesn’t do; it’s clear from recent comments and questions on social media that there is confusion. Approval of Minutes Minutes of the February 21, 2017 meeting were approved as amended following a motion by Frank, seconded by Maureen, and passed unanimously. Old Business -Center for History John Prendiville, Wheaton City Council member and Laurie Warfel, Center for History board member came to provide a review of a recent meeting also attended by Mike Gresk, Mayor, Mike Dzugan, City Manager, and Alberta Adamson, Center for History Director & CEO, regarding the Center for History collections. They are exploring transferring custody of the Center for History’s collections (minus the Civil War collection, golf collection, and Eastland collection) temporarily to the city, with the ultimate goal of then transferring ownership to a new 501c3 organization. Some of the collections are currently stored in the City Hall Annex, but others are stored in various places; storage units and possibly private homes, per newspaper articles. There is a mix of donations and loans that will need to be sorted out. It is envisioned the new organization will be independent of the city, but with some possible city financial support. John said the new organization would need volunteers and funding. Laurie stressed the need to have some professionally trained staff, as the Center had. There is a specific master’s level training for professional museum work that has been available for decades. Steph pointed out everything that they are trying to figure out has already been done by others. They could easily get guidance on all the legal and other issues from the main national museum organization, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), especially as there are very specialized concerns. Mark was interested in the legal aspects and John said the city attorney had been working on it. Again, the AAM was suggested as the best and most knowledgeable resource. John referred to the Center for History’s artifacts, but upon questioning, it was understood that he meant both the artifacts (three dimensional objects) and archival collections (paper). While the Center for History was eventually positioned as a regional museum, the city and the new organization envision only being focused on Wheaton. Thus not all of the collections would transfer. Golf (some is loaned materials) , Civil War and the Eastland disaster collections would not be transferred. It was pointed out that the Baker costume collection has only one item, a baseball uniform, with a Wheaton provenance. The remainder of the Baker collection has no local associations whatsoever, and the family retained all their family pieces. There was concern there may be documentation issues, perhaps some missing paperwork. Steph said professionally trained staff would know how to properly deal those issues and that museum work entails a lot of legal knowledge. Nancy asked that an eye be kept out for the missing Historic Wheaton landmark files, no more than two banker boxes worth of folders. The commission had been told the files had been inadvertently discarded during the move from Front Street, but it is still hoped that they are possibly still stored somewhere, overlooked. Laurie thought that was not an unreasonable hope, given the scale and haste of the move. The Wheaton Public Library’s past offer to house the archival collections was brought up, but John said that was no longer an offer. The bottom line is people need access to the Wheaton related materials and they currently don’t have this access. -New Commission Members There are still two openings. -Preservation Crisis Update City Council approved the Pulte development unanimously. Nancy spoke during public comments and mentioned the Craigslist ad. Visitors Donna Peterson and Amy Whitter brought up the Wheaton Theater project. There was more discussion about historic properties like the theater and the Warren Wheaton house and how social media and GoFundMe campaigns might be employed. -Preservation Month 2017 Maureen will do the Wheaton Insider program; Nancy will be the backup person if needed. The bike tour waiver has been revised. The Wheaton Park District is renovating the monument at Northside Park listing the names of 500 residents who served. -Miscellaneous -The railroad depot marker has been redrafted to the revised design. Hopefully at next month’s meeting we can look at a full sized version and then use that to scout possible mounting sites at the station. -Barb asked if the Pride in Preservation sign assignments could be available by the April meeting. New Business -Financial report Nancy said a few hundred dollars more have been spent in the last month. Commissioner Comments -Steph was glad to see forward movement on the Center for History collections -Frank was going to a program at COD on the Early History of Glen Ellyn by John Schreiber Adjournment Tom moved, Frank seconded, the motion passed unanimously, and the meeting concluded at 8:44 pm. Next Meeting: Tuesday, April 18 at 7:00 pm, City Hall