Top Stories Milwaukee

Can a veterans memorial be a source of controversy? It can if it’s the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, a non-profit with gets considerable county funding and also houses most of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s galleries. A new county audit was ordered to investigate concerns that deferred maintenance could threaten the museum’s artworks. Meanwhile, supervisors are arguing over what the audit could mean for the War Memorial’s future.

The county board approved a resolution (introduced by Supervisor Pat Jursik) ordering the audit by a 15-3 vote on September 30. Auditors are asked to look into the “many maintenance challenges and changing space needs” of the center and art museum, which uses the lower levels of the building as gallery space. The resolution says such a review is warranted “as all groups are attempting to maximize revenues and reduce expenses given the current economy.”

the war memorial center

First envisioned toward the end of World War II, the center, designed by Modernist architect Eero Saarinen, opened in 1957. The Milwaukee Art Center, later to be renamed the Milwaukee Art Museum, was an early occupant. In 1966, the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum overlooking Lake Michigan (the former home of A.O. Smith President David Adler) was donated to the county. Its management fell to the center, as did the Allis Museum (now the Charles Allis Art Museum) when it was donated to the county in 1979. All these entities are non-profits.

While all three art museums have grown over time, the other two are dwarfed by the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has built the city’s most iconic building, the Calatrava addition that connects to the south side of the center and the galleries within it.

“How come a war memorial veterans group is running a major art museum?” asks Supervisor Gerry Broderick, who represents the area and voted for the audit. The question might actually be broadened to ask why the War Memorial is running three art museums, counting Villa Terrace and the Allis Museum. All three fall under the purview of War Memorial Executive Director David Drent, who made $110,337 in salary and $29,499 in “other compensation” in 2008, the most recent year for which data was available.

Drent doesn’t claim to have any experience overseeing art museums but says all the War Memorial does is handle payroll and accounts receivables for Villa Terrace and the Allis Museum. Drent points out the Milwaukee Art Museum executive director Daniel Keegan has indicated that his museum is not interested in overseeing the other two.

Jursik says she plans to introduce legislation that would ask the Charles Allis and Villa Terrace museums to prepare plans to become self-sustaining. Combined, the two receive about $244,000 a year from the county. “We’ve got to start doing things differently,” she says.

pat jursik

Broderick and Jursik worry that deferred maintenance by the War Memorial is putting the art museum at risk. “The building is not in good repair. There are some real pending problems in terms of climate control” that could endanger the museum’s collections, Broderick says. Jursik, who also serves on the art museum’s board of trustees, says the facility has had “major leaking problems” for years.

“We’ve got millions of dollars of artwork hanging in this building,” she says. “The current environment does not meet museum standards.”

The 2011 Capital Improvements Budget proposed by County Executive Scott Walker includes $42,000 to reseal windows in the center and another $15,300 to repair window leaks on the building’s east side. Walker proposes maintaining the center’s county funding at $1.5 million a year. In 2009, the center collected $206,745 from office rentals, $199,721 from renting out Memorial Hall and Fitch Plaza, the center’s two largest venues, and $321,352 from charging parking fees, a practice Broderick questioned earlier this year when the center proposed expanding its northern parking lot.

The War Memorial Center is a periodic topic of contention for the county board. Supervisor John Weishan, who voted against the audit and supported the parking lot project, which would have also beautified the building’s northern entrance, warns that the audit is “a thinly veiled attempt to defund institutions.”

“I normally don’t have a problem with audits in general, but what is the motivation here?” he asks. “When you really look at the institutions, all of them are very well run and provide a huge service to Milwaukee County.” Weishan, a Marine veteran, was a member of the group America’s Freedom Center, which raised money for renovations of the war memorial center and sought unsuccessfully to build an educational center on veterans’ issues to the north of the facility.

In the parks committee, where Broderick is chairman, the resolution (which was later passed by the full board) was modified to call for a review of parking at the center. Broderick says the scope of that review will be left up to county auditors.

The center lost parking on its south side with the construction of the Calatrava addition. The center’s proposal would have expanded the northern lot by 0.6 acres, but it encountered opposition from Broderick and parks groups. The current lot already extends slightly beyond the boundary set by its lease with county. But cars have parked on grass well beyond the boundary since the O’Donnell Park parking garage (which sits opposite the art museum) closed in June.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.