Nearly 600 students visited the Eudora Community Museum last year in what was an overall successful year for the historical society, Ben Terwilliger said Monday night.
The executive director of the Eudora Area Historical Society met with city commissioners during their meeting to provide an update.
Terwilliger said the biggest highlight of the last year was the close work he had with the school district. The number of students who visited in 2023 beat the last record by about 100 students, he said.
Since 2011, the museum’s hosted nearly 3,200 students for field trips and activities, he said.
Terwilliger also partnered with third grade teacher Ashley Golay to help write a book about the Eudora community. The book will be distributed to the students.
Over the last year, he has also focused on making progress on the museum’s new core exhibit, which will feature history about the area’s earliest Native American tribes. The text and images for the exhibit have been chosen, and Terwilliger has found a local contractor to work on the project. He hopes it will be completed within the year.
The museum had its second best year ever in visitation with 2,2000 people. He estimates the museum will have its 20,000th visitor this year since record keeping began in 2011.
There are about 262 members, including 85 life members, with dues costing $10. These dues and donations fund the operation budget for the historical society, he said.
Earlier in the evening, the City Commission met with the Eudora Township Board to stay on the same page and discuss future plans. The city recently had similar meetings with the library and school board.
City staff updated the township on the population flatline in the area. Assistant City Manager Zack Daniel told the board the reinvestment housing incentive district should help bring more housing to the area.
Clerk Jason Grems and trustee Jim Gabriel attended the meeting, along with Travis McCormick, who lives in the township and plans to run for the board.
Mayor Tim Reazin updated the board on the city’s economic development plans, specifically plans to diversify the city’s tax base with an entertainment district south of K-10. The city is working to fill all the spots in Nottingham to ensure the businesses serve the community.
Gabriel said the township’s biggest concern is the township’s 1200 Road and Eudora’s 28th Street, and the school traffic causing more congestion that the township can’t handle.
The maintenance costs about $9,000 a mile, McCormick said. He asked the city if there would be potential to help with these costs.
Reazin said the city is still trying to get the connectivity plan figured out, and he believes there needs to be some kind of connection for students leaving school. The RAISE grant will also help with some of these issues, Reazin said.
Reazin also said new steps need to be implemented so the library board members must be elected inside or appointed by both the commission and township. This is important since they are planning bond projects, he said.
In other business Monday night, budget analyst Micheal Gentry gave an unaudited budget report for the end of fiscal year 2023.
The city will start doing more regular updates to the commission this year as the city uses money in the fiscal budget, Daniel said.
Revenues for the general fund were up $13.8% from the original budget, and actual expenses for the general fund were down 2.4%, Gentry said.
“So those two factors combined leave our ending fund balance in a very strong position, which is 49.1% higher than was originally budgeted for the general fund,” Gentry said.
The ending utility funds also ended in a strong position, he said. All four funds ended in a higher balance for 2023 than was in the revised 2023 budget.
Parks and Rec had a strong performance in 2023, he said. Revenues were up about 37.4% from the original budgets and revenues were up by 9.7% from the revised budget.
“When we see larger revenue generated through these avenues, that’s pretty indicative of people taking part in the programming and the equipment and the facilities that we have to offer in this area,” Daniel said.
Daniel said these results are a testament to the department head’s diligence and responsible spending.
Daniel said the city is in a favorable position with fund balances across the board.
“So what that means is we either spent less in these funds than what we anticipated in our original budget and our revised budget or we generated more revenue or in a lot of cases, a combination of both,” he said.
In a debrief about the township meeting, Reazin said it’s hard for him to commit money to the dust control for the roads the board had brought up but could be something the city partners with the county on.
He isn’t sure how many Eudora residents are driving on those roads, and doesn’t want to take resident money away to pay for them if there hasn’t been a study on the traffic.
Commissioner Jolene Cullen wondered how many miles of dust control maintenance the township wanted for funding help.
Also Monday night, Susie Yuran, director of human relations for the city, said two people have been hired in the last quarter. Rob Harmon started in October as a field operations worker and Andrew Krulik is the new IT administrator.
Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected]
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