MUSEUM DIRECTOR BOOTED

The Grand Rapids public museum has a new boss and a new future as an independent institution.  The taxpayer subsidy from the City of Grand Rapids will be phased out in three years, and the museum will be completely on its own for funding.  The city subsidy has already been declining over the past several years, so the museum already has experience in raising money from other sources.

Even so, the city is retiring Museum Director Timothy Chester at the ripe old age of 49 because of the City Commission's disappointment with his financial management of the institution.  Chester will be giving up a salary of over ninety grand a year, but collecting his fifty thousand dollar annual pension should buoy his spirits.  (Who knew failure could be so rewarding?  Oh right.  Government work.)  To lead the transition, the city has given Thomas Wesholski, a banker, a $50,000 contract to re-organize the museum as a non-profit corporation and put it on its path of independence.

All in all, this is a sensible move.  I just wonder where the Van Andels are?  After all, the museum is supposed to called the Van Andel Museum after their dear ol' departed dad.  They claim to be sitting atop of their half of the mult-billion-dollar Amway fortune.  Paying the museum's bills would be chump change for them -- only a sliver of just the interest throw off from such a huge pile of wealth.  But just like the Van Andel Institute, they want the status of high-profile good works, but want someone else to pay for them.

There are only one of two explanations for their tight-fistedness.  Either the Van Andels are misers, or the fortune doesn't exists.  Whichever it is, they aren't being square with us when they pass the hat for the institutions named for their father.