Gov. Rauner orders closure of Lockport museum – but city's mayor fights back | The Herald-News

 

LOCKPORT – Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has ordered the Illinois State Museum system, including the Lockport Gallery, to shut its doors to the public by the end of the business day Wednesday.

But can Illinois’ top executive officer order the closure of a privately owned building?

Lockport Mayor Steven Streit doesn’t think so.

“It’s not the state’s building. It’s not the state’s [liability] insurance. It’s not the state’s artwork at this point,” Streit said Tuesday, noting he’s in talks with the building owner on keeping the museum’s doors open to visitors.

While the four other ISM branches are located on state property, making Illinois the landlord, so to speak, the Lockport Gallery — at 201 W. 10th St. — is not, said John Lustig, gallery manager.

“Who is wagging the dog? That’s the open-ended question,” Lustig said.

It wouldn’t be the first time the museum staff and Lockport mayor have taken matters into their own hands.

Since the museum was emptied out this summer because of a lapse in insurance, the two parties pulled together to create “The People’s Exhibit,” so the walls now are filled with the public’s work made in reaction to the state’s budget crisis. Lockport officials recently placed the museum’s new artwork under the city’s insurance.

Streit said the city also will cover the museum’s rent and utility bills in the interim at a reduced price agreed upon with the building owner.

The four other branches slated for closure include the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, the Chicago Gallery in the James R. Thompson Center, the Southern Illinois Art and Artisans Center in Whittington, and the Dickson Mounds Museum in Lewistown.

As a state employee, Lustig said he will follow Rauner’s orders, but that if Streit and the building owner choose to unlock the doors, that’s of their own free will.

Streit said Tuesday he hopes he can sidestep the closure orders, adding the museum is too valuable to the city’s continued development of downtown Lockport to be “under lock and key.”

Pending lawsuit

Rauner is moving forward with the planned Thursday closure, which also includes the Sparta Shooting Complex in Springfield, even as state employees continue to draw paychecks because of a pending lawsuit. The ongoing St. Clair County lawsuit brought forth from public employee unions prevents him from laying off employees, as the case is under arbitration.

That means employees such as Lustig will report to work and stay on payroll.

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