The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation is in severe financial
hardship and needs your help in investigating what happened to their
money. Apparently, the board has spent at least half the endowment,
mortgaged the Director's house, spent two bequests, taken out large
bank loans, and still owes significant amounts of money to vendors.
Kathy Cyr, the Program Director, has left out of disgust. The
Attorney General of Illinois can investigate the board's activities,
if enough people request that they do so. Otherwise, the Attorney
General will allow the board to spend the rest of the endowment so
that they are out of debt and then the organization will be allowed
to die. Please join us in a fight to save the Campbell Center for
future museum and preservation colleagues. Ask that the Attorney
General investigate the finances, determine whether expenditures were
appropriate and met the mission, and determine whether the board has
violated their fiduciary duty. Many of the instructors believe that
they have. We have asked that the Attorney General remove the current
board of directors and replace it with Campbell Center stakeholders.
Please join us in this request. Below is a letter that you can use a
template to send to the Illinois Attorney General, Ms. Lisa Madigan.
Lisa Madigan
Illinois Attorney General
Attn: Charitable Trust Division
Mathew Shapiro, Assitant Attorney General
1200 West Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60601
312-814-3000
Fax: 312-814-2596
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Re: Board of Directors of the Campbell Center for Historic
Preservation Studies in Mt. Carroll, Illinois
Dear Ms. Madigan, Illinois Attorney General
I am writing because I am deeply concerned about the actions of the
Campbell Center for Historic Preservation's Board of Directors in
recent years. They have:
- Used restricted funds for unrestricted purposes
- Taken on a redevelopment project that is not part of their chartered mission.
- Threatened the whole organization by incurring large debts.
- Mortgaged part of the Campbell Center property.
- Violated their fiduciary duty.
The current board has evinced no interest in, or understanding of,
the chartered mission - to provide preservation training to an
international audience. They have been pursuing community
redevelopment projects - which would benefit the city of Mt. Carroll
more than the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation.
I ask that you dissolve the board, which is made up primarily of Mt.
Carroll citizens who are not involved with museums or historic
preservation activities, and reform it with representatives from the
community that the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation serves.
I also ask that you take steps to make the current board of directors
personally responsible for the debt that they incurred in the name of
the Center without receiving permission from the Center's
stakeholders - the teachers, students and funders.
The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies has a fabulous,
international reputation, one of almost mythical proportions. The
courses it provides are considered the best available in the museum,
historic preservation and conservation fields. This unique
institution, the only one of its kind in the world, must continue. It
is sorely needed. The board of directors' active destruction of a
valuable international resource must be stopped.
Yours sincerely,
(your name and institutional affiliation (optional))
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