Archivists and advocates urge Council to restore funding after mayor moves to cancel new UDC archives site

Public witnesses, professional archivists and nonprofit supporters pressed the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor on June 6 to restore funding for a planned state archives building at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), after the mayor’s FY26 budget proposed cancelling the project and shifting planning toward alternatives.

Multiple witnesses cited a decade of planning, professional facility studies and a signed MOU with UDC that, they said, make the UDC Van Ness site the best location for a modern, accessible DC Archives. Trudy Peterson of the Friends of the DC Archives, archivist Katharina Herring, Bill Rice of the Committee of 100 and Friends of the DC Archives, Carl Bergman and representatives of the DC Archives Foundation described the UDC plan as the product of professional assessments and community review, and they warned that abandoning the site now would waste millions already spent and set back archival access for researchers and students.

At the hearing Secretary of the District of Columbia Kimberly Bassett and State Archivist Dr. Lopez Matthews appeared for the Office of the Secretary and answered committee questions. The Office of the Secretary confirmed that the Department of General Services (DGS) is managing the capital budget and that the mayor’s proposed capital changes reallocated funds. Agency fiscal staff provided a breakdown of prior expenditures on the UDC archives project: $14,000,000 in total to date, composed of about $4.3 million in design, roughly $900,000 in project management, and about $8.9 million in construction‑phase spending, according to the Office of the Secretary’s fiscal officer, Paul Blake.

Advocates said the mayor’s budget would divert the project to a staged plan that pairs a small public-facing presence at the Charles Sumner School with a separate storage site, a scheme opponents called impractical and more expensive to operate. Carl Bergman noted that the mayor’s proposed FY25 supplemental would reallocate large capital sums and, he said, target UDC for nearly half of the reallocated funds; he urged that the council pause and commission an independent review rather than abruptly cancel a project that had completed architectural design, an MOU with UDC, and a general contractor procurement stage. He and other witnesses raised operational concerns about using Sumner School (no loading dock, building systems work needed) and warned that the alternative could fragment collections and increase ongoing operating costs.

Advocacy groups — including the Friends of the DC Archives, the DC Archives Foundation, the League of Women Voters and the Society of American Archivists (via prior letters) — urged the council to restore the UDC project in the CIP and to consider a narrow pause for independent outside review rather than a cancellation. They also asked the council to require the Administration and DGS to produce itemized cost justifications for the project’s estimated cost escalation and to identify whether alternative cost savings were explored before the proposed reallocation.

Why it matters: Advocates characterized the archives as essential to government transparency, historical research and educational programming. They highlighted co‑location benefits at UDC — internships, research access, preservation of UDC institutional records and the Felix Grant Jazz Archives — and said moving the facility to split sites would undercut those academic and public benefits. Supporters also warned that halting the project now risks losing institutional knowledge and wasting the $14 million already spent.

What the Office of the Secretary told the committee: Secretary Bassett acknowledged the project changes reflected a mayoral capital reallocation and said the administration remained committed to a public home for the archives. The Secretary said DGS is responsible for capital execution and that some funds remain in existing capital balances to support future archive storage. Bassett also confirmed that the Office of the Secretary’s archive staff have continued digitization, records management improvements and FOIA processing while planning proceeded.

Next steps requested by witnesses and the committee: multiple public witnesses urged the council to commission an independent cost and feasibility assessment; several asked the Council to preserve the UDC project and not reallocate the funds; the committee requested detailed, itemized cost estimates from DGS and the Administration and said it would question DGS and the mayor’s capital team in follow‑up sessions.

Provenance: testimony and documentary details came from public witnesses and the Office of the Secretary’s testimony and written responses during the June 6, 2025 Committee on Executive Administration and Labor hearing.