Please note the
following summary will appear on this Facebook page and on the Marin County
Public Safety Museum Facebook page and on both websites for those projects.
Before I start the update, I’d like to remind you that we
are still accepting donations of any artifacts, material or pictures that you,
a family member or friend may want to contribute to our projects. We can accept them now because Harry has
offered storage at Barbier Security.
If you have pictures but don’t want to donate them, remember
that we have the ability to scan them and save them. That way you can share them with us but you
can still keep the pictures.
I’d also like to remind you that volunteers are welcome to
join either or both of our projects!
Just contact Harry Barbier, Tom Boyd, Jeff Franzini or myself or post a
message on one of our FaceBook pages or websites. I’ll include that information at the end of
the update.
It’s been some time since we posted an update for the Marin County
Law Enforcement Museum and the Marin County Public Safety Museum so here is an
update as of September 23, 2016. Note
that Jeff has been on vacation for most of the summer and is not expected to
return until mid-October.
The three of us, Harry Barbier, Tom Boyd and myself had been
meeting on a regular basis to discuss both Museum projects but we have not met
for the past couple of months because we have been meeting with a group called the
San Rafael Public Safety History Group that was started a few months ago.
Its Chair is Dr. Stephen Mizroch, a member of the San Rafael
Fire Commission, who has the backing of the San Rafael City Council to start
the group and report back to the Mayor and Council. The group has a representative from SRPD and
SRFD as well as 2 members of the San Rafael Fire Commission and some at large
San Rafael residents plus some retired people from both SRPD and SRFD. Harry, Tom, Jeff and myself were invited by
Captain Glenn McElderry to participate in this committee’s work. Glenn is the Department’s representative for
the new San Rafael Public Safety Building project and thus a member of the San
Rafael Public Safety History Group.
The San Rafael Public Safety History Group was formed to
make recommendations to the San Rafael City Council on what items to put on
display in the public space located inside the front entrance to the new San
Rafael Public Safety Building. This
project is well under way and final plans have been approved with fine tuning of
the project now underway.
After attending the first couple of meetings of the San
Rafael Public Safety History Group, it became apparent to us that many of the
stated goals of the San Rafael Public Safety History Group overlapped those of
our two museum projects. I provided a
history of our 2 groups to the San Rafael Public Safety History Group a couple
of times in the hopes of clarifying our efforts to get our 2 projects up and
running and to hopefully avoid a duplication of effort.
Because of the large overlap in goals, Harry and Tom, and
myself, decided our smaller group (working on the 2 museum projects) did not
need to meet again until it was clear what the San Rafael Public Safety History
Group was going to do and how they were going to accomplish their goals once
they were formalized.
1.
So our group for the Marin County Law
Enforcement Museum and the Marin County Public Safety Museum, have not met for
some time. We’re waiting to see what
comes from the San Rafael Public Safety History Group.
The architect met with us on 9/19/16, and answered many
important questions. For example:
1.
There is only about 300 square feet of floor space
available to display exhibits.
2.
There is a large amount of wall space available to
display exhibits in the lobby and exhibition areas.
3.
There is enough room to install some display
cabinets. These could be fixed or
mobile.
a.
The design and configuration of the display
cabinets will be determined by the architect and brought back to us for our
input.
4.
There is funding in the project to include
lighting, electrical and computer and network connections. This is critical and she will ensure there is
enough flexibility to ensure any future expansion or changes.
5.
There is some funding for public art for the new
building.
a.
There is a ton of wall space available throughout
the building in both police and fire spaces to hang pictures.
6.
There is no funding for personnel to setup and maintain
the exhibition area (floor, display cabinets or wall space areas).
There has been a lot of discussion about what to display in
the exhibition area (floor and wall space) and the collection, inventory and
storage of exhibits. Much of this
discussion overlaps the discussions we’ve had for our 2 projects.
We’ll continue to meet with the San Rafael Public Safety History
Group and offer as much support as we can.
However, it is my opinion that some of the members of the San Rafael Public
Safety History Group want to create a new group working within the framework of
the San Rafael City organization just for this project rather than try and bring
all 3 groups together working on a common set of goals. Harry, Tom and I have expressed our interest
in seeing the groups finding some way to work together to meet all of goals for
all the groups.
The 3 groups are:
1.
The Marin County Law Enforcement Museum
2.
The Marin County Public Safety Museum
3.
The San Rafael Public Safety History Group
Whether or not this will be possible, remains to be seen. There are some obvious obstacles ahead but
the main thing we want to accomplish is to have some input into what the public
exhibition area will look like and what exhibits will be put on display.
As more information becomes available in the future months,
we’ll update you. For now, there are no
meetings planned until January 16, 2017.
The architect will return to report to us what she has developed from
our ideas and suggestions.
Gene Pennington
Marin County Public Safety Museum
Marin County Law Enforcement Museum
