Here is the whole story from the Missoulian:
The museum that brings us the plane that flew smokejumpers to their doom in Mann Gulch in 1949 was thrown a lifeline Tuesday.
By a 7-0 vote, the Missoula County Airport Authority agreed to knock off 90 percent of the rent that the Museum of Mountain Flying pays to operate its 25,000-square-foot hangar at Missoula International Airport.
The decision means that, counting utilities and a common area maintenance fee that all airport tenants pay, the private museum with a shoestring budget will shell out about $365 a month to stay put.
That compares with the nearly $850 a month without the break in rent, which museum supporters say is way too much to keep the doors open on the seasonal operation with a lean budget and an impressive inventory of aircraft and paraphernalia celebrating the history of flight in the Rocky Mountains.
“There’s no way we can continue paying $844 a month when we open only 3 or 3 1/2 months of the year,” said Stan Cohen, co-founder of the museum and president of its board of directors.
The museum centerpiece is the Johnson Flying Service “Mann Gulch plane,” a DC-3/C-47 that’s in the process of being restored to 1949 condition. The idea is to have a flying history lesson and memorial to those lost at Mann Gulch north of Helena and other wildland fires.
Museum supporters appeared before the Airport Authority at its monthly meeting at Missoula International Airport hoping for full rent abatement or, barring that, a reduction to cover only the summer months the doors are open.
They didn’t get either, but say they came away satisfied.
“I think it’s a challenge, and I think we’ve got a good chance we can make it work,” Jim Valeo of the museum board. “We’re going to put our shoulders to the grindstone and make it work.”
Museums as a rule don’t make a profit, and this one, run as a nonprofit corporation, is forever on a shoestring budget. The Flying Museum has been paying full rent since last July and has stayed above water only by selling a bus and a fire engine.
Eviction from the choice property would present a tangle of problems. While rent is charged on all airport land, the museum board owns the hangar and what’s inside. Moving the building would be impractical, Cohen said, and since the museum is owned by a nonprofit corporation, revenue from selling the hangar and its exhibits by law would have to be donated to other nonprofits.
“I have talked to the county. We would love to be in the county museum system, but we’re not eligible because of their accreditation, which is very difficult to get,” Cohen told the airport board. “To be accredited you have to be open year-round, with paid staff and a curator.”
He said Richard Simms, director of the Montana State Historical Society, visited and “was very interested in the museum.”
“But he said he’s got his own problems trying to raise $13 million dollars to build his own new (state) museum in Helena,” Cohen said. “The only other government entity would be you people.”
The issue attracted an uncommonly large crowd to the authority’s monthly meeting. Some two dozen people sat in the gallery at the airport conference room, including representatives of Minuteman Jet Center and Northstar and Neptune Aviation, which maintain their own private operations at the airport. Both spoke in favor of the rental break and in admiration of flying museum volunteers.
“We know what these guys have been doing, and I think it’s amazing what they’ve done,” said Forrest Gue of Minuteman. “We support them in any way we can.”
The airport board granted the fee reduction for 10 years, with the provision that the museum board presents an annual report of its progress.
Cliff Larsen, vice president of the airport board, lauded museum supporters for a “very professional approach” to their presentation, which included a financial report, information on the museum’s new Web site, www.museummountainflying.org; and letters from Hellgate Elementary School Superintendent Bruce Whitehead and Kay Ebelt, who teaches aeronautics at Target Range School, urging the board’s support to keep the museum alive.
Speaking on behalf of the museum board, Art Dykstra said the board did some soul-searching “trying to figure out why this seems to be an issue for us.”
It came to the realization “that what we failed to do was to express to the board why this was such an important organization to us,” Dykstra said, thus the multi-pronged packet of information.
Larsen said the presentation was in contrast to the museum’s more informal and less substantive appearance in spring 2008, which by some accounts was less genial than Tuesday’s meeting.
Afterward, Valeo said he appreciated the airport board’s empathy.
“There was a feeling of acceptance in this meeting that I thought was really rewarding,” he said.
Created in 1993, the Museum of Mountain Flying spent its first seven years in a tiny hangar before receiving the current one as a donation. Its small collection has grown to include a Twin Beechcraft Model 18; a rare model of Huey helicopter; two small home-built planes with radio receivers that serve as static displays for kids to climb in; and a 1930 Moth that hung for years in the Helena Airport Terminal before it was given to the Missoula museum after a remodel.
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com.
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