Things get heated in Keystone after contacting fire marshall

Keystone Area Historical Society (KAHS) had two meetings in the span of a few days to address the Keystone Museum and vacancies from its board, and people packed into the Keystone Community Center for its Aug. 23 meeting.

During that meeting it was revealed that the current lease between KAHS, which runs the museum, and the town, which owns the museum building, was not renewed in January. 

The museum is currently closed due to safety concerns after the local fire department did a walk-through of the building. That closure and the incidents leading up to the walk-through were the main topics of discussion at this meeting.

Town board president Casey McNulty and town board trustee Sandi McLain were both in attendance at the meeting. McNulty was the only trustee to speak and appeared to do so on behalf of the town board. 

McNulty said due to town liability the museum was closed because of fire concerns such as no anti-slip on stairs, no emergency exit lighting, a fire alarm system in the building that is not operational, a lack of a fire-rated door on the building’s exterior and no fire extinguishers present in all  rooms. McNulty said these are things that can be “easily addressed” and said they needed to be addressed before allowing patrons inside.

“God forbid something was to  happen ... it would now be the town’s responsibility,” McNulty said. 

McNulty said the town is working on the list and estimates a “couple of weeks at the most” to address the concerns. He stressed trustees do not intend on having the museum closed for a long period of time.

He admits the liability issue may have been present for a long time, “but once we’re notified of it we can’t just pretend we don’t know about it,” McNulty said.

The town board was notified of the issues by the KAHS.

Sarah Walker, who at the time had sat on the KAHS board, said she saw fire pulls disengaged in May when she volunteered in the museum for its “Let’s Bring History to Life” schoolhouse program, which brought  600 students through the museum doors.

Walker  said she consulted about the pulls with the museum director at that time, Casey Sullivan, who as she put it, said, “I don’t know, maybe they were broken.”

Walker said at that time she brought it to no one’s attention and was just “wondering.”

It wasn’t until she saw The Haunting of Keystone contract July 20 that she  thought, “what if something happens?”

She made phone calls to local firefighters, who advised her, and although she did not admit she called the fire marshall directly, she felt her actions were reasonable. 

Museum director Jeanine Kirkpatrick supported Walker saying, “ I’ve lived through a house fire. Is it worth somebody’s life to die in that?”

Walker was supported by fellow board member Andrew Jones, who accepted responsibility for the call and received occasional support from Kirkpatrick. KAHS board president Deb Dagard at one point apologized on behalf of the KAHS. 

“I’m really sorry that this was not handled in the right way,” Dagard said. “I want to apologize to the town that we didn’t have enough respect to the Haunting, the generosity that they have shown to the museum.”

Keystone resident Bob Nelson fired questions at Jones and Walker such as “Have you anticipated what could happen if the fire marshall decides the school is not safe and the repair work is almost undoable?” and “Have you considered the future of the school?”

Jones said “the consequence of not doing this far outweighs any possible consequence of doing it.”

Walker said she had no idea that issues would extend as far as sprinklers or prevent the Haunting from happening. 

“We’re just trying to make it safe for the kids,” she said.

Rich  Songstad said  the KAHS board could have asked him personally what safety things he does for the Haunting. 

“Nobody was called about anything,” Songstad said. “Instead you decided to sneak around behind us and throw a sucker punch.”

Songstad  said Jones and Walker pointed out safety concerns to the local fire officials during their walkthrough. 

“You were more about causing problems than fixing them,” Songstad stated, referring to diesel fuel and combustible concerns. 

Sonsgted said handrails were put up for safety and that he did a walk-through with “your electrician” to see if there were any problems.

“We’ve done everything we could for safety,” Songstad said.

Songstad said during the Haunting there is a person in every room and they are trained to yell “fire, fire, this is not a drill” if there is an emergency. He said his people brought their own fire extinguishers to the museum. 

“There’s never a time you’re in a room without somebody who knows that building,” Songstad said. 

He called his actors human smoke detectors who know their way out. 

“Anything we thought of safety-wise that we could do we did,” he said.

Songstad and Nelson were not the only people who had comments and questions.

Karen Boland wanted to know why the issues weren’t addressed during the “Let’s Bring History to Life” program in May. 

Gideon Oakes said  Jones’ actions were a “violation” of his “fiduciary interest to your board.”  

Nelson agreed. 

“This all started out as a safety issue that you people saw. That’s your main interest and then the next step was to enlist the fire marshall…but you never as a board had a legal vote as to whether you should do that. This is a problem to me,” said Nelson.

Oakes was concerned about issues relating to the Haunting of Keystone, asking, “do we have a timeline for the lease of the Haunting?”

McNulty said any lease will now occur between town trustees and the Haunting of Keystone directly, not via the KAHS, which had previously been the entity to contract with the Haunting. 

Oakes then asked “do you foresee any challenges to that lease going through at this point?”

McNulty noted the only challenge he saw was if the fire marshall prevented the building from being reopened.

Besides issues with the Haunting of Keystone there were concerns about the KAHS being defunded by the town. KAHS is the owner of the museum property; all donations and artifacts belong to that entity. 

Kirkpatrick was unclear as to what is currently on inventory and said during her two tenures as museum director she has tried to give receipts to people who donated items. She said she personally went through old minutes to determine  how some artifacts were acquired. 

“We have to figure out what to do with stuff that was here before I came,” Kirkpatrick said.

KAHS also has about $28,000 cash on hand. While the city does own the museum building, without owning its contents it has little to display to the public.

McNulty said the city is not asking for KAHS to leave the city entirely but rather asking for a more streamlined process and for the KAHS to act as an advisory board. KAHS currently has 501(c)3 status.

McNulty suggested KAHS retain its own separate legal counsel.

At one point people asked for certain KAHS  members to resign, which Jones and Walker did after the meeting. Kirkpatrick resigned from her position as museum director less than 24 hours after that Aug 25 meeting.

At an Aug. 25 meeting remaining KAHS board members voted to reinstate Bonnie Zebroski (former KAHS treasurer) and her daughter, Liz, to the board, in addition to Patty Songstad and Dennis Kling.

The Haunting of Keystone involves  Sandi McLain, Tom and April Hagen, Rich and Patty Songstad and Gideon Oakes, who has been referred to as administrator  of the attraction in several publications.