ALPLM panel to convene peace talks
Lawmakers schedule hearing on museum governance
MUSEUMS | Bruce Rushton
Members of an advisory board to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library have agreed to sit on a panel designed to explore governance issues that erupted last spring when the board’s chairman pushed legislation to divorce the institution from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
Steven Beckett, a University Illinois law professor who chairs the advisory board, had blasted the IHPA’s proposal for an ad hoc panel to discuss governance. He says that he still wants the ALPLM to become a stand-alone agency, but not everyone on his board agrees.
“I have a divided board that wants to keep an open mind,” Beckett said. “I can’t represent to you that it’s peace and harmony. I can represent that we’ll work with IHPA people on ideas and suggestions on how governance can be improved.”
Two advisory board members, Paula Kaufman and Charles Branham, will sit on the panel that will also include Julia Bachrach and Melinda Spitzer Johnston, who are IHPA trustees, and Craig Schermerhorn and Will Ball, who are members of the institution’s private fundraising foundation. Panel members from the IHPA, advisory board and foundation will together choose three members from the public to fill out the panel.
Even as the panel convenes, state lawmakers have planned at least one hearing to discuss governance controversies. The House State Government Administration Committee will convene on Oct. 1 in Chicago to discuss ALPLM governance issues, and committee chairman Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, says that he hopes to hold a second hearing in Springfield.
“There are serious issues there,” said Franks, who last spring voted against a bill to make the ALPLM a stand-alone agency governed by Beckett’s committee, which now can only give advice to the IHPA board. “I think the way it’s laid out now, it’s not working as it should, so we need to make some changes.”
Problems include a lack of accreditation, squabbles between the advisory board and IHPA board and a private fundraising foundation deeply in debt due to the purchase of artifacts that include a hat with shaky provenance that foundation and ALPLM officials insist once belonged to Lincoln, Franks said.
“No one would design anything in the normal world with three separate boards and three separate missions,” Franks said. “I see a foundation that buys things that are questionable and as a result of having so much debt they can’t help the mission of the museum. I see IHPA telling the museum what it can and can’t do. I wonder why we have an executive director (at ALPLM) if IHPA is running it. We haven’t been accredited.”
Franks said he voted against the bill to establish a stand-alone agency last spring because he wanted more information. He said he’s not sure that handing the institution over to an advisory board that has met fewer than 10 times is the right move.
“This is too important to guess on,” Franks said. “I am ready and willing to listen to all ideas that make sense. This is too important for politics to play a role.”
Franks said he wants a report from the ad hoc committee so that lawmakers can take action before a new General Assembly convenes early next year. He noted that the House has already passed the bill to establish a stand-alone agency.
“I want to have a sense of urgency with these groups so they know that we’re very serious,” Franks said. “The default is, the Senate president can call that bill.”
Sunny Fischer, IHPA board chairwoman, says she hopes to have a report from the ad hoc panel by Jan. 1.
“It’s a big decision,” Fischer said. “I am concerned, as I have been from the very beginning, that we do need to study this.”
The decision to move forward with the ad hoc panel and include members of the advisory board came after an Aug. 28 advisory board meeting in Chicago. Three IHPA board members, including Fischer, attended. Under the state Open Meetings Act, the IHPA should have put out a public notice in advance of the gathering along with an agenda, according to Don Craven, lawyer for the Illinois Press Association.
Although the IHPA didn’t notify the public that trustees would gather, Fischer pointed out that the advisory board meeting was advertised on the presidential library’s website, so the public had a chance to attend. Chris Wills, IHPA spokesman, said via email that the meeting was recorded and that the advisory board took no votes or final action. He didn’t dispute Craven’s assessment that the law requires public notice when three or more members of the IHPA board meet to discuss the institution, and he said that it wouldn’t happen again.
“Three members of the IHPA board of trustees attended the meeting even though it was not a meeting of their own board,” Wills said. “Regardless of whether that triggers the Open Meetings Act, out of an abundance of caution, we will post a meeting notice for the IHPA board should that ever happen again.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].
