{"id":2358,"date":"2009-09-28T20:40:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T03:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/?p=2358"},"modified":"2025-10-10T19:14:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T02:14:46","slug":"mayor-dan-cort-gives-away-pacific-grove-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/mayor-dan-cort-gives-away-pacific-grove-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Dan Cort Gives Away Pacific Grove Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led by Mayor Dan Cort<\/strong> —
\nPacific Grove’s City Council Gave Away
\nPacific Grove’s Beloved Natural History Museum
\nin June 2009 to a New Organization with No Experience or Money<\/strong><\/p>\n

This huge change to Pacific Grove<\/strong> has —<\/p>\n

1. No Business Plan,
\n2. No Budget,
\n3. No Money or Funding Guarantee from the New “Owners,”<\/p>\n

4. No Public Accountability (Secret meetings and documents)
\n5. No Fundraising Plan,
\n6. No Needs Assessment,<\/p>\n

7. No Emergency,
\n8. No Open Bidding Process,
\n9. 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.<\/p>\n

Details:<\/u><\/p>\n

* There is No Business Plan<\/strong> !<\/p>\n

This Contract will cost our City of Pacific Grove<\/strong> $3 Million dollars over 15 years.
\nYet 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<\/strong> that includes a Budget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There is No Budget!<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the City Has Guaranteed Costs of at least $180,000 a year (150k plus maintenance).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There is No Fundraising Plan<\/p>\n

* There is No Needs Assessment<\/p>\n

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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There is No Money or Funding Guarantee<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/strong> the City received as a grant from the Packard Foundation<\/strong> last year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There is No Public Accountability<\/p>\n

All Control was Given Away to a Private Group who’ll have Secret Meetings<\/strong>, Secret Plans<\/strong>, Secret Records<\/strong>. The City Must Sue Them (Legal fees) to recover any control or oversight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There is No Emergency<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Deadline is Fabricated, the Crisis is Manufactured. With or without the Contract the City has already Budgeted Museum<\/strong> funding for next Year at $150,000+.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* There was No Open Bidding Process<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other Non-profits should be invited to help City Museum<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* Money Raised at Museum by this group can go to other Groups that have nothing to do with our Museum.<\/p>\n

Who will get money from this misguided contract?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* Who Are Those Guys?<\/p>\n

It Doesn’t Matter Who They Are<\/p>\n

No matter who they are – this is a horrible One-Sided Deal. Our Museum is NOT “Leased” because We, as the City, Get No Money from them – Its Just a Give Away to a Secret Group with No Guarantee of anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What we do know about them is —<\/p>\n

1. The IRS says this Group is not a Foundation<\/strong> – its a regular non-profit (with no money) yet the group has a misleading name using the term “Foundation.”<\/p>\n

2. Group has Changed Presidents<\/strong> three (3) times in only the recent six (6) Months – Chris Hasegawa (Jan. 09), Judd Perry, and Jason Burnett (May 09)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Pacific Grove<\/strong> City Council lead by Mayor Dan Cort<\/strong> gave away Our Beloved Museum to People who have no Experience Running a Museum and no Money.<\/p>\n

Questions –<\/p>\n

* Why Does this group want Control?<\/p>\n

* What is their Secret Agenda?<\/p>\n

* What are the real reasons Mayor Cort<\/strong> fights so hard for this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Led 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2358"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9399,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions\/9399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}