Editor,
I am writing today to thank our three Island County Commissioners, Jill Johnson, Janet St. Clair and Melanie Bacon, for their financial support of the Island County Historical Society and Museum.
The ICHS has survived financially from hand to mouth since 1949. We are a foundational, year around popular tourist institution that creatively showcases history, artifacts and archives of which we are the repository.
We have always been very budget conscious but with the increased competition among county non-profits it is becoming more challenging to bring in enough funds to meet our yearly expenses. We had to dip into our savings this year and realized that we could not sustain these kinds of withdrawals for too long.
We responded to this situation by developing a strategic plan and have hired a fundraising consultant to advise us on a course of action that will enable us to get the museum on a reliable long-term financial footing by attracting sources of income that we can count on in planning our future yearly budgets.
We met with each commissioner individually to ask their support in securing funding from the 2% hotel/motel taxes paid by tourists staying overnight in the county.
We have gotten grants in the past from the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, or LTAC, currently chaired by Commissioner Melanie Bacon, which distributes these tourist generated funds but the amounts received and the increased number of nonprofits applying for the funding has made it difficult to do advance budget planning.
Each commissioner listened to our concerns and responded positively to our request for help as well as sharing their personal suggestions for solving our challenges. The commissioners have agreed to set aside 20% of the yearly LTAC funds for history related tourist institutions. These institutions include the ICHS, the Pacific Northwest Naval Air Museum in Oak Harbor, the South Whidbey Historical Museum in Langley and Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve in Central Whidbey. They are also looking into possible state historical and archival funds that we might access.
We sincerely thank the commissioners for listening to our concerns and responding so positively to our request.
Michael Ferri, president, Board of Trustees
Dalva Church, executive director
Island County Historical Society and Museum
