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The museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty may finally reopen this summer, nearly three years after 9/11, but the call for private philanthropy has less than a patriotic feel to it. Two decades after a private foundation led by then-Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca raised $300-million to restore Lady Liberty, the same group is asking for money toward an uncertain end.
As described Sunday by New York Times reporter Mike McIntire, the national campaign to "reopen Lady Liberty" has morphed into an ill-defined and ever-escalating project that may or may not ultimately welcome visitors into the stairwell to the crown. Though one company, Folgers, has launched a campaign proclaiming "The Future of Lady Liberty Is in Your Hands," the future seems controlled instead by well-compensated fundraisers and surprisingly idle bureaucrats.
"I resent the commercialization of it, pretending that we have to go begging corporations for money, when there has been more than enough money all along," U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., told the Times. "As an American citizen, I don't want the Statue of Liberty co-opted by Wal-Mart."
The National Park Service oversees the statue, but Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has inexplicably ceded that responsibility to the nonprofit Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. The Park Service identified roughly $2.3-million in security and access improvements, none of which have begun, and asked the foundation rather than Congress. The foundation, which had roughly $38-million in the bank, decided to turn around and ask for more donations - to the tune of $5-million at first, which it then increased to $7-million.
The foundation's insistence that it spend none of its endowment would be more persuasive if it weren't now spending $2.1-million on a payroll that includes a $345,000 salary for president Stephen Briganti and salaries exceeding $100,000 for four other staff members. Its push for fiscal prudence stands in contrast to its high-risk investment strategies, which led it to lose $13-million to the market in the past two years.
There is good reason to question why the foundation even continues to exist at all, a point raised by Donald Hodel, who was Interior secretary when the statue was restored. "I think it's improper," Hodel said. "It is the creation of an endowed entity, which by keeping its funds to itself is free to pay its employees in perpetuity, whether or not it does anything for the statue."
A Senate committee already has begun asking for foundation records, a member of Congress has called for a General Accounting Office inquiry and the Interior Department has dispatched its inspector general. But these are matters for which Norton has to assume responsibility. The foundation is asking people and businesses for money that may not be necessary, and neither the foundation nor the department can say exactly how the money will be spent. Will Lady Liberty actually be reopened, as has been promised, or will donors merely assure continued employment for the Liberty foundation?