That is if you call no signed contract for the first installment of the $1.5m forgivable loan a snafu:
When the city wrote the International Civil Rights Center and Museum a $750,000 check last year, it didn’t yet have a signed loan agreement with the museum.
That revelation came to light Friday, after Councilman Tony Wilkins requested a copy of the contract with the museum from City Manager Jim Westmoreland and discovered it was not signed.
The city gave the museum the first half of $1.5 million in forgivable loans in October to help prop up the financially failing organization.
“I just can’t imagine issuing a check for three quarters of a million dollars without a contract,” Wilkins said.
N&R reminds us “(t)his is the second time in as many weeks that council members were caught unaware by the way city staff handled the agreement with the museum” —- last week we—and the City Council— learned city staff had granted the museum an extension on the deadline to turn over its 2012 audits —a condition of the forgivable loan.
Wilkins suggested the City Council reach out to former City Manager Denise Turner Roth to find out what’s going on, while City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan is saying there’s nothing the city can legally do to claw back the $750k. Stay tuned.
