HomeMy WebLinkAboutE-mail-Letter from M Magliari 02.15.09 - Hall of Records Please add new Butte County Hall of Records to General Plan Cultural Resources Goals Page 1 of 2
Moghannam, Kathleen
From: Magliari, Michael [MMagliari@csuchico.edu]
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2009 5:36 PM
7o: Connelly, Bill; Dolan, Jane; Kirk, Maureen; Yamaguchi, Kim; Lambert, Steve; 4, District
Cc. Moghannam, Kathleen
Subject: Please add new Butte County Hall of Records to General Plan Cultural Resources Goals
Importance: High
BARD
Attachments: Butte County Hall of Records ��gU�'�RVISpRS
FEB 152009 February 15, 2009
OROVILLE, CALIFORNIA
TO: Butte County Board of Supervisors
FROM: Michael Magliari, Professor of History
California State University, Chico
RE: Addition of Proposed County Hall of Records to County General Plan
Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors,
When you meet on February 19 in regard to the updating of the Butte County General Plan, I
strongly urge you to add to the Plan's list of goals the construction of a Butte County Hall of
Records,to be administered by the County Clerk-Recorder's office.
One of the many vital purposes of the General Plan is to identify and then provide for the
protection and stewardship of the county's unique and valuable cultural resources. Ironically,
among the most endangered cultural resources_in Butte County.todayare_the_irreplaceable historic
records generated since 1850 by the county itself. Comprising a huge array of documents
produced over the past 159 years by the various branches of county government(including the
Board of Supervisors, the Clerk, the Recorder, the Assessor, the Sheriff, the Treasurer,the
Superior Court, etc.), this treasure trove of historical data lays scattered about in various locations,
and most of it remains utterly inaccessible to the public, or even to county officials who might
require access to it. It also remains, in most instances, improperly housed and therefore subject to
constant deterioration. This is especially the case with the vast bulk of our historic documents
collection, which now sits uncared for in the abandoned County Hospital building, and in the
basement of the Veterans' Hall in Oroville.
What is urgently needed is a new County Hall of Records facility that can provide proper
professional archival storage for our historic government documents and, at the same time, make
them conveniently retrievable for on-site use and study by local historians, genealogists,teachers,
students, planning officials,journalists, and other interested members of the general public. The
establishment of such a facility, which has the potential to become a revenue-producing research
center, should be made a top priority among the various cultural resource protection elements of
the county's revised and updated General Plan. The Butte County Cultural Resources Coalition
and the Chico Heritage Association agree, and both organizations have formally endorsed this
pro osal`.
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Please add new Butte County Hall of Records to General Plan Cultural Resources Goals Page 2 of 2
Unfortunately, two major misconceptions stand in the way of this proposal. First,there appears to
be a widely held belief that our historic county records have already been saved and made
accessible to posterity (either in the original"hard copy" form or in microfilm format)by various
entities such as the Butte County Historical Society, Cal State Chico's Meriam Library, and the
Clerk-Recorder's office. This, however, is true only of a small fraction of the county's surviving
documents that represent the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Meanwhile,most of our sadly
neglected and decaying records remain unfilmed, uncatalogued, and unavailable.
The second great misconception blocking this proposal is the belief that Butte County simply
cannot afford to build a new County Hall of Records, especially given the severe fiscal constraints
it now faces along with the rest of the state and nation. In truth, however,the County Clerk-
Recorder's Office already has the funds necessary to cover the costs of much of the project and to
get it started. The Clerk-Recorder's three Restricted Funds for modernization and conversion of
records currently hold over two million dollars. These restricted funds are exclusively earmarked
for the purposes of the Clerk-Recorder's office and thus would be ideal for financing the
construction of a new Hall of Records building. And, if the county simultaneously deployed these
monies as matching funds, they also could be used to attract Federal Stimulus Funds sufficient to
cover any remaining construction costs.
Butte County thus has a golden opportunity to save its endangered historic records and to build a
facility that has the potential to become a first-class research center. I strongly urge the Board of
Supervisors to embrace this opportunity and to begin moving this project forward. The creation
of a new Hall of Records should be added to the General Plan's resource preservation goals, and
the county should begin pursuing this goal as swiftly as possible. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Michael Magliari
Professor of History
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0735
(530) 898-6332
rnmagliari@csuchico.edu
<<Butte County Half of Records>>
2/16/2009