Petaluma Wildlife Museum ‘in administrative limbo’

<p>In the theater, “The show must go on” is the golden rule. For the Petaluma Wildlife & Natural Science Museum, the rule is: The tours must go on. And the fund-raisers. And the special events. With the possibility that embezzlement charges will be filed against high school teacher Marsi Wier, its former director, the museum continues its day-to-day activities while trying to rebuild its finances and reputation. </p><p>Interim executive director Neal Ramus says that the museum's financial statements “are still in administrative limbo, and the board can't file charges until our CPA finishes a forensic financial audit.”</p><p> The museum's annual budget ranges from $50,000 to $75,000, and at one point during Wier's tenure its bank account was overdrawn; it now has about $30,000. But the non-profit museum has been the victim of the proverbial “double whammy.” </p><p>The museum's curator, Jordan James, who also serves on its board as treasurer, notes that along with many other nonprofits, “we've been hit hard by the economy. Both donations and attendance are down greatly. School groups that visited us year after year can no longer come due to budget cuts.”</p><p>However, last Friday, 80 second-graders and several teachers from Miwok Valley Elementary School took a field trip to the museum, located in a converted school bus garage on the Petaluma High School campus. There, 18 wildlife and museum management students introduced the youngsters to some of the wonders of nature. With patience and good humor, the teen docents did their spiels using show-and-tell props such as the skull of a saber-toothed cat and the tusks of a woolly mammoth, and engaged the kids in guessing games to help them delineate the difference between an albino animal and one that is leucistic.</p><p>The highlight for the children was petting live exotic creatures, including a silky-furred chinchilla, a pair of leopard geckoes from Afghanistan, and an albino python named Pearl.</p><p>“The tour brought in a large donation,” says James, “but we normally don't charge for teachers or parents. We also tell teachers when they book a tour that if they have students who cannot afford the $3 donation, don't worry about it. The museum is here for the public to enjoy. We will never turn anyone away if they can't afford to make a donation.”</p><p>Attendance for an annual pasta feed on Oct. 2 was down, and while figures are still being tallied, Ramus estimates it brought in a respectable $3,000. He says the museum's summer camp continues to bring in more than 70 percent of the program's yearly income.</p><p>Both Ramus, 24, and James, 20, are graduates of Wier's Wildlife & Museum Management program. </p><p>On Aug. 19, KGO-TV aired an interview with Weir by the station's Dan Noyes. She could not explain why two checks were made out to cash and deposited into her account, or why manicures, massages and restaurants were charged on the museum credit card. Wier told Noyes she paid $1,399 back that she used to pay for day-care expenses. She also purchased a $659 air conditioning unit in 2008 but, according to James, it was never given to the museum. </p><p>“We've since developed a system for financial review,” Ramus explains. “Jordan, as treasurer and curator, does most of the bookkeeping and spending. The two of us review the expenditures weekly and then we have monthly board meetings at which they're reviewed as well. Our monthly transactions are now down about 90 percent.”</p><p>There was no such oversight in the 10 years Wier was the director. </p><p> Ramus discounts Noyes' on-camera statement that the museum is “in disrepair.” </p><p>“It was the end of the school year and, true, some basic maintenance hadn't been done yet,” says Ramus. “And about four years ago, our saltwater tide pool — which is hugely expensive to maintain anyway — was drained because it has a crack in it and we were losing about 150 gallons of water a day. It's a structural problem, not due to negligence. </p><p>“But right now our goal is to rebuild both our financial stability and our reputation in the community,” he adds.</p><p>(Contact Bob Canning at argus@arguscourier.com)</p>