Group hopes $400,000 it raised will preserve Coyote Point Museum
Proponents of a climate center there showing less interest
- Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer, Wednesday, August 23, 2006
A community group that wants to preserve San Mateo’s Coyote Point Museum has raised more than $400,000, and museum officials said Tuesday that a rival proposal to scrap the aging attraction to make way for a global warming study center will most likely be rejected after receiving bad reviews from the public.
Also on Tuesday, the 11th Hour Project, the Silicon Valley-based environmental group that proposed scrapping Coyote Point Museum,
appeared to back off from its proposal, saying in a statement that it is “considering a variety of potential sites in the Bay Area” for the global warming center.
Officials at Coyote Point Museum set off a controversy this month when they announced they were considering the proposal from the 11th Hour Project.
Corrina Marshall, interim executive director of the museum, said Tuesday that the museum has received a huge number of responses over the last three weeks from community members upset over the prospect of losing the Peninsula’s only center focusing on local wildlife and ecosystems.
Marshall said the museum board would meet Tuesday night in closed session to discuss a proposal from the Campaign to Save Coyote Point Museum. That project, co-founded by a former Coyote Point Museum executive director and a former board member at the museum, has raised more than $400,000 from about 450 people.
Campaign organizers, who hope to keep Coyote Point Museum open in its current form, said they will present a formal proposal to the museum board Sept. 1. The proposal would cover museum governance, programming, operations, budget and fundraising, and is meant to create a financially sustainable institution, said co-founder Linda Lanier. The group had promised to raise $300,000 — half of the museum’s current deficit — by the end of August, but “sailed past” that marker, Lanier said.
The museum has been struggling to stay financially solvent for years, according to museum officials.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, members were to discuss “criteria for assessing the proposal from the Campaign to Save Coyote Point Museum,” Marshall said.
“The 11th Hour Project’s proposal was great, but this really matches what the community wants,” she said. “I think the desire (of museum officials) is to go ahead and work with that group going forward.”
In a statement, the 11th Hour Project said it is “developing a proposal to build an environmental learning center dedicated to the experience of the world’s climate and to the understanding of the essential interconnection of the Earth’s climate system.” The statement goes on to say that the project has been in discussions with the San Mateo County Parks Department, which owns Coyote Point Recreation Area, “about a potential site in the county park at Coyote Point; but we are independent from the Coyote Point Museum and are not working with this organization.”
The museum, located east of Highway 101 at the tip of Coyote Point Recreation Area, attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year, including about 20,000 schoolchildren. The museum features dozens of local animals and plants, including a golden eagle, river otter and a coyote. Inside, there are classrooms and interactive exhibits, including an environmental hall outlining the six major ecosystems in the Bay Area. In the summer, there are day camps for children, and during the school year, classes visit the museum.
E-mail Marisa Lagos at mlagos@sfchronicle.com.
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