FORT MADISON – Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld set forth an aggressive city agenda at the end of Tuesday night’s Fort Madison City Council meeting.
A big part of that is challenging several councilmen to spearhead an effort to determine “what’s next” for the Old Fort museum in Riverview Park.
Mohrfeld told the council even with American Cruise Lines making stops at the Old Fort for the past several years, the business model at the Fort wasn’t successful.
With ACL officials announcing in December that they would not be stopping in Fort Madison in the near future due to higher demands for day cruising, Mohrfeld said it was time for the city to determine the future of the Old Fort.
“This is a painful conversation,” Mohrfeld said. “The model’s not working.
“It wasn’t working when we had 3,600 visitors and it’s not working when we have 1,800 coming next year (based on cruise line numbers). It hasn’t worked for the past six years.”
He said because of that, the Fort has fallen into disrepair and the city has subsidized the operations to the tune of about $100,000 annually from the hotel/motel tax fund.
“We need to look at what’s next and I don’t know what that means,” he said.
Mohrfeld asked Councilmen Kevin Rink and Rusty Andrews, the two most tenured councilmen, to head up the task of looking into the future of the facility.
A current task force is functional for the Fort, but the past Old Fort Commission was disbanded by Mohrfeld due to inactivity.
“I just have gone too long letting a lot of this stuff in limbo,” he said.
After the meeting, Mohrfeld said proposals to run the Old Fort that were received last year are not valid with the discontinuing of cruise line stops in Fort Madison.
“We went out to look for operators and the economics of that now really don’t work,” he said. “One was more philosophical feedback, the other was concrete. But the place is in terrible shape, so if we’re going to look at what’s next - then what’s next?”
He said he wouldn’t address past suggestions to tear the facility down, but said in asking what’s next he didn’t want to paint the task force or the councilmen assigned to determining the future of the Old Fort, in a corner.
“I can’t answer that, but when I say what’s next, I’m not going to back them in a corner. If this is a transition - that was talked about a year ago. Now it’s time. What’s next?” he asked.
The city has put several thousand dollars into pulling down some parts of the Old Fort last summer that were deemed unsafe by city building director Doug Krogmeier and Fort Madison Fire Chief Joey Herren.
At that time Mohrfeld said nothing was off the table when it came to discussing the future of the facility. Then-director Dr. Eugene Watkins has since resigned from the post and last spring, the Old Fort Facebook page posted an announcement that city officials had decided to shutter the facility.
In the days after that post, city officials including former City Manager David Varley said the announcement was premature and had to address the issue through the City Council. Those conversations generated an outpouring of support to keep the Old Fort functional. The facility was put under the direction of City Public Works Director Mark Bousselot and Mohrfeld put out a challenge to residents to step up to assist in saving the historic Fort.
On Tuesday, he said that had generated some volunteer efforts that included a fundraising effort put on by local teenager Abrie Asay, but he said it wasn’t enough.
No time frame was put on the action by Mohrfeld, only that the two councilmen work with the taskforce to determine the appropriate direction.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here