Monday, October 09, 2006

"Did the Getty get off easy?"

That's the question CultureGrrl Lee Rosenbaum asks in an op-ed in Friday's Los Angeles Times. She says we'll never really know: "The problem with the 12-page public summary of the attorney general's findings is that there is no way of knowing. [The AG's office] declined to release the facts and figures on which the report's conclusions are based, asserting that information acquired during the investigation is 'exempt from public disclosure under the Public Records Act of California.'" Her conclusion:

"The much-publicized personal friendship between Munitz and [AG] Lockyer made it all the more essential for the attorney general's report to provide sufficient detail to instill confidence in its findings. With this report, and with the refusal by all parties to provide further details on its findings, it's not just the Getty Trust that has shown disregard for its public trust, it's also the California attorney general's office. The damage that this sorry episode inflicted on public confidence in the Getty and, by extension, all nonprofits is perhaps the biggest cost of the inadequate oversight by the Getty's board of Munitz's actions — a loss for which there can never be adequate compensation."