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Committee debates Red Cedar attendance tracking and possible evening hours
Summary
Committee members discussed improving how Red Cedar museum tracks visitors — door counters, logs and hourly counts — and weighed whether to shift hours later in the day; staffing and budget constraints mean the group will review data after a full year before changing hours.
Members of the Red Cedar committee said they want better data before changing museum hours, noting current systems — an electronic door counter and a sign-in log — leave gaps for visitors who do not sign in.
The committee chair said the city asked for daily attendance tracking and the group is doing that, but added, “Until we get somebody that sets there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week out front and counts the number of people that want to come in and can't … there's no way for us to know if we're right or wrong.”
Bonnie Post, who raised the idea of hourly counts, said collecting hourly data could show whether late-evening hours are warranted: “If we don't know hourly how many adults or how many children are in there … we can't tell whether to move hours later.” Supporters of that approach said hourly tallies — augmented by program sign-up lists — could indicate if altering a weekday or adding one evening would increase attendance, particularly for residents who work daytime hours.
Committee members also noted practical limits. Several speakers said staffing and budget determine whether evening shifts are feasible. One member said part-time staff have other jobs that may preclude evening coverage and asked whether the city could provide additional funding for staffing.
The group acknowledged an existing door counter and a sign-in tracker but said neither captures visitors who do not sign the log. Members urged the public to phone Red Cedar staff (referred to as “Kelly” in the meeting) if they want a special visit; staff suggested the committee will review a full year of attendance and then consider schedule changes.
Because the committee did not take a binding vote on hours, no policy change was adopted. Instead, members agreed to continue tracking attendance through the first year of operations and revisit the hours and staffing question after more data are available.
