Commissioners voted 6-0 Monday to scale back programming at the Clinton House Museum. Starting Jan. 1, the commission will pay only rent and maintenance expenses until the lease expires with the University of Arkansas on Dec. 31, 2021, according to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“Putting together a winding-down plan is not pleasant, it’s not how we thought we would’ve ended the year,” said Molly Rawn, chief executive officer of Experience Fayetteville, which is the city’s tourism bureau. “But it also doesn’t mean there’s still not a really great future for the house out there. I’m committed to working with the Clinton House Museum board to figure out what that looks like.”
In June, the commission cut about $1.3 million from its nearly $5.4 million budget for the year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The building closed to the public in March.
Several pieces of Clinton family memorabilia are exhibited at the museum house, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. The Clintons married in the living room of the house in 1975.
Commissioner Todd Martin proposed scaling back the museum operation, saying its costs are resting on the shoulders of the commission.