HB2251 is on its way to Gov. Brewer after passing the Arizona House 58-1 on the legislatures last day in session. The bill transfers the Arizona Mining & Mineral Museum from the Dept. of Mines and Mineral Resources to the Arizona Historical Society. [right, artists concept of the Centennial Museum]
Some members of the ADMMR Board, the AMMM Foundation, and museum volunteers, had led the oppostion to the transfer, fearing that the role of mining and minerals in Arizona will be diluted in the new museum's focus on the state's five C's: cotton, citrus, cattle, climate, and copper, or that the museum will only look at historical rather than current and future roles of mining.
The bill also makes the Director of ADMMR a gubernatorial appointee rather than subject to hiring and firing by the ADMMR Board.
This poorly crafted bill was pushed through the legislature by Senator John Nelson of Glendale and Representative Russel Long of Yuma in spite of obvious problems. What, if anything, of the existing top rated mineral museum will be preserved is unclear.
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