Lead by Mayor Dan Cort
Pacific Grove’s City Council Gave Away
Pacific Grove’s Beloved Natural History Museum
in June 2009 to a New Organization with No Experience or Money
This huge change to Pacific Grove has —
1. No Business Plan,
2. No Budget,
3. No Money or Funding Guarantee from the New “Owners,”
4. No Public Accountability (Secret meetings and documents)
5. No Fundraising Plan,
6. No Needs Assessment,
7. No Emergency,
8. No Open Bidding Process,
9. We must pay them at least some $150,000 per year, and yet the contract requires them to give our City nothing in return, absolutely nothing, except vague unenforceable ideas.
Details:
* There is No Business Plan !
This Contract will cost our City of Pacific Grove $3 Million dollars over 15 years.
Yet nothing in writing is due until three months after the council gives it away. The Council should not vote on a $3 million dollar contract until after they read a Business Plan that includes a Budget.
* There is No Budget!
But the City Has Guaranteed Costs of at least $180,000 a year (150k plus maintenance).
* There is No Fundraising Plan
* There is No Needs Assessment
Why would we need this. It costs the City just as much money to keep control as to give it away. What’s really going on here?
* There is No Money or Funding Guarantee
from the new (penniless) Organization. They Don’t Promise to Raise any Money – Only to Use “Best Efforts.” They even want our city to give back $185,000 the City received as a grant from the Packard Foundation last year.
* There is No Public Accountability
All Control was Given Away to a Private Group who’ll have Secret Meetings, Secret Plans, Secret Records. The City Must Sue Them (Legal fees) to recover any control or oversight.
* There is No Emergency
The Deadline is Fabricated, the Crisis is Manufactured. With or without the Contract the City has already Budgeted Museum funding for next Year at $150,000+.
Anyone who genuinely Cares about Our Museum and Our Town will still be there when we are ready. Why is this secretive group insisting we act now?
* There was No Open Bidding Process
Other Non-profits should be invited to help City Museum.
* Money Raised at Museum by this group can go to other Groups that have nothing to do with our Museum.
Who will get money from this misguided contract?
* Who Are Those Guys?
It Doesn’t Matter Who They Are
No matter who they are – this is a horrible One-Sided Deal. Our Museum is NOT “Leased” because We Get No Money from them – Its Just a Give Away to a Secret Group with No Guarantee of anything.
What we do know about them is —
1. The IRS says this Group is not a Foundation – its a regular non-profit (with no money) yet the group has a misleading name using the term “Foundation.”
2. Group has Changed Presidents three (3) times in only the recent six (6) Months – Chris Hasegawa (Jan. 09), Judd Perry, and Jason Burnett (May 09)
The Pacific Grove City Council lead by Mayor Dan Cort gave away Our Beloved Museum to People who have no Experience Running a Museum and no Money.
Questions –
* Why Does this group want Control?
* What is their Secret Agenda?
* What are the real reasons Mayor Cort fights so hard for this?
