Northeast News
November 22, 2013

Late Thursday afternoon a city ordinance was filed by Councilwoman Jan Marcason to legally separate the Kansas City Museum and its managing partner Union Station. The ordinance, which will be heard by Marcason’s Finance Governance and Ethics Committee Monday morning, acknowledges the recent strife between Union Station and the Kansas City Museum and outlines a laundry list of stipulations for each entity moving forward, first and foremost being the city’s Parks and Recreation Department taking over management of the Museum and ownership of the entire collection.

Amy Hull, a longtime Museum Advisory Board member and Secretary of the newly formed Kansas City Museum Foundation was pleased with the agreement. “We’re very pleased with this agreement and look forward to the Museum Foundation working with the city moving forward in developing strategies to continue the restoration of Corinthian Hall and ultimately display some of the collections that haven’t seen the light of day in a very long time”.

As part of the agreement the city would retain all of the MIL Levy funds, take over management of the Corinthian Hall facility and store and manage the entire collection. The city would also execute a lease agreement with USKC for roughly 14,000 square feet of storage space at Union Station for $131,000 per year in order to store part of the collections. The remainder of the collections would be housed lease space in the caves near M-210 and I-435.

The ordinance also calls for the dissolution of the city appointed Museum Advisory Board, originally established in 2004 to provide oversight on the management of the museum by USKC. The Kansas City Museum Foundation, an independent, 501c3 was formed earlier this year after long time Museum Director Christopher Lietch was fired, bringing the separation issue to the forefront. In a recent Museum Foundation Board meeting, Lietch was named as the Executive Director of the Kansas City Museum, working directly for the Parks and Recreation Department at the Corinthian Hall facility. The Kansas City Museum Foundation will be an independent support arm of the Museum, much like the Friends group was before it was dissolved in 2011 and folded in to the Union Station support group. Still in question is the more than $800,000 bankroll the Friends group took to Union Station upon its dissolution.

Upon approval by the full council, the ordinance would take effect on May 1, 2014, the beginning of the city’s fiscal year.