Efforts to retain DOGAMI map collection in JoCo successful
From our weekly issue dated August 05, 2009
The Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) Grants Pass field office in Merlin has been closed, but efforts to keep some of its materials in Josephine County have proven successful.
Josephine County Commissioner Sandi Cassanelli said that many of the geological maps and mining files once contained in the Merlin facility have been photocopied. The originals will be stored at DOGAMI’s Portland office, Cassanelli said, but the copies will be kept at the courthouse in Grants Pass.
Cassanelli said the maps will be stored in the surveyor’s office, and the gem and mineral samples will likely be kept in display cases in the hallways and lobbies of the courthouse.
“The state has allowed us to keep the collection here,” she said. “They want it in the courthouse because the state feels it has to have public access readily available.”
At one point, it was hoped that the collection could be kept at Kerbyville Museum in Illinois Valley. But Dennis Strayer, who serves as president of the museum’s board of directors, said he found out during a Tuesday, July 28 phone conversation with DOGAMI officials in Portland that the materials must be kept in a public facility.
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“Apparently, according to their regulations, they cannot give the stuff to non-profits,” Strayer said. “My understanding from the conversations I’ve had is that it has to stay with another government entity.”
Cassanelli credits her fellow commissioners for their efforts to keep the materials local, along with state geologists Tom Wylie and Vicki McConnell, the legislators who represent the area, and Southern Oregon Resource Alliance Chairman Jim Frick.
“Everybody was pulling together in the same direction to get this done,” she said. “We got what we wanted, and the state got what it wanted.”
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