City of Superior Now Operating Local Museums

SUPERIOR, Wis.– Today, it was announced that the employees at the Fairlawn Mansion, S.S. Meteor, and Police and Fire museums are now considered city staff.

This transition is something that has been in the works for a while.

“It’s been a long discussion, but ultimately, we’ve been evaluating our relationships with all outside organizations. What we found is everything works a little bit better. If the people own it, they should run it, they should operate it, they should be in charge of it, and so that’s ultimately what we did,” said Mayor Jim Paine, City of Superior.

This decision happened for numerous reasons.

“We decided that the city itself would take over operations effective today, so that we could leverage more opportunities, namely, the city has more financial resources, and we’re more efficient, especially when it comes to staff, wages, benefits and overall operations,” said Mayor Paine.

And with this new management, they’re wasting no time cooking up new ideas and adjustments.

“We’re always trying to evolve. We’ve got new exhibits in the works. We’re always looking for new opportunities for programming. We had a really successful history talk series that we did this spring that we’re hoping to bring to all three museums this fall. Plenty of exciting ways to get involved,” said Jordan Stish, museums manager.

But while the details are being worked out, everything is seemingly optimistic during this transition.

“We’ll be able to compensate them for some of that work. Instead of having it all be volunteer based, my staff are the best of the best. They deserve a great wage. I’m really excited for them. I’m excited for myself as well, but my biggest priority was making sure that my staff were paid fairly,” said Stish.