PEABODY — In a series of votes, the City Council approved three measures by a margin of 8-2 Thursday night that would lead to establishing a children’s museum located at the old TD Bank building at 10 Main St.
All six ward councilors and Councilors-at-Large Ryan Melville and Tom Gould voted yes on the measures, while Councilors-at-Large Jon Turco and Anne Manning-Martin voted no on the measures.
Each measure was presented to the Finance Committee earlier that night and all three passed by a 3-2 vote. Manning-Martin and Turco, who serve on the committee, were the two who voted no.
The vote authorizes a five-year lease agreement of the property created by Peabody Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. and Viceroy Capital Management, authorizes the creation of a Children’s Museum Department as part of Peabody government and schedules the compensation of pay for the executive director and the assistant executive director of the museum.
Bettencourt said the push for a children’s museum has been a priority for him since 2014. In 2019, the CuriousCity Children’s Museum was established and has served as a trial balloon of what a theoretical children’s museum would look like.
“I want this for our downtown; I want this for our city; I want this for our children, our neighborhoods, our family and I believe this can be a great success,” Bettencourt said. “The success we’ve had at the pop-up children’s museum has convinced us more so that this will work.”
Bettencourt said the reason Peabody should have a children’s museum is that it would not only be a fun activity for families, but it would help businesses and restaurants located downtown and near the building. Additionally, he said this museum could be a landmark moment, not just for Peabody, but for Essex County.
According to projections from the mayor’s office, the children’s museum’s budget would cost nearly $550,000 a year.
Unlike many museums which are owned by nonprofits or designated 501c3s, the museum would be under the ownership of the city itself.
This raised concerns from Turco, who said there was a risk by not running under a 501c3.
He asked if the city could form a 501c3 for the museum rather than add the $550,000 to the city budget for the museum budget.
“We just took $7.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to make up for budget shortfalls,” Turco said. “We’re not fully recovered from the pandemic and I doubt we can recover.”
Bettencourt said there needs to be a children’s museum on the North Shore and he wants to claim Peabody in Essex County as the place to build a children’s museum, therefore making it an imperative agenda item for his administration.
Manning-Martin said she based her no vote on the current financial situation in Peabody as well as financial risk.
“I support the concept of a children’s museum but my role as a city councilor is to gauge whether we can support the financial risk,” Manning-Martin said.
Despite both Turco and Manning-Martin voting no on the three measures, Martin-Manning proposed a fourth measure related to the museum.
This measure calls for an evaluation period to gather data about the museum that is set to take place in the museum’s third year.
Bettencourt agreed to Manning-Martin’s proposal and the measure passed both the Finance Committee and the City Council unanimously by a 5-0 and 10-0 vote, respectively.
