ShawneeDispatch.com

Though the Johnson County Library System has proposed merging with the Johnson County History Museum and moving it to Overland Park, the Museum Advisory Council has recommended exploring other options as well.

At a meeting Tuesday, the Advisory Council considered a plan that would merge the museum and Johnson County Library to create a Family Cultural Center, as well as the second phase of the museum's strategic plan, and decided to hold off on supporting the cultural center.

On July 21, the Johnson County Library Board approved the concept of a plan to merge the museum with the library system and move it to a proposed Johnson County Family Cultural Center in Overland Park. The center would have an estimated cost of $26.4 million and would be built at the current Oak Park Library site, 9500 Bluejacket Road, though no funding is currently in place for the project.

Love said the plan might be presented to the Board of County Commissioners in a workshop sometime in September.

The Advisory Council discussed the fact that the Johnson County Board of Commissioners has attempted to find alternate funding for the museum in the past few years rather than supporting it in the county's general fund. It is currently funded as a part of the Johnson County Heritage Trust Fund.

"If there are factions who think this (museum) should not be funded at all, you're never going to get it back into the general fund," said Ben Mann, Advisory Council member.

Love said it seemed those commissioners who did not want the county to fund the museum any more had asked the library to take it on.

"The library had been approached by individual county commissioners and been asked to create a plan to merge the museum with the library," Love told the council.

Shawnee City Council members Neal Sawyer, Cheryl Scott, and Mickey Sandifer attended the meeting, along with mayor Jeff Meyers and Linda Leeper, president of the Shawnee Area Chamber of Commerce. All said they hoped to keep the museum in the city.

Meyers outlined Shawnee's support for the museum and willingness to help the museum find alternate locations within the city. He also suggested that if the museum were to merge with the library system, perhaps officials could included it in a future library in western Shawnee rather than tear down an existing library and rebuild.

In the end, the Advisory Council decided to continue working on a strategic plan for the museum before endorsing the proposal.

At Monday night's Shawnee City Council meeting, the mayor and some Council members voiced support for Love and the museum when former Council member Tracy Thomas requested that Love be removed as chair of the Convention and Tourism Committee.

"Her intention is not that the museum has to move out of the city of Shawnee," Meyers said. "I think she is concerned with space."

Council member Mickey Sandifer, Ward IV, commented that discussion at the Advisory Council meeting had also calmed his fears about the situation, since the cultural center was a concept and not much more, with no funding in place.

"I left the meeting feeling pretty secure with the thing," Sandifer said.