Who is true here, someone with years of experience in operating many of the Mvsevm’s functions – or out of towners with none at all.

In June 2009, the City Council approved a public-private partnership between the city and the Museum Foundation of Pacific Grove Inc., in which the city leased the museum and its collection for 15 years, while retaining ownership of the museum’s property and its collections.

The foundation is responsible for operations, planning and management.

The Pacific Grove Museum Foundation board “in reality is a private organization unwilling to work with the city board,” Trosow wrote. “We have been accused of micromanagement of the museum; we have not had the executive director of the foundation present at a single meeting and we have been ham-stringed by Byzantine rules about communicating with the foundation.”

She also contended that substantive reports on museum activities are not given in a timely manner and described executive director Lori Mannel’s monthly reports as “generally void of useful information about operations at the museum, contain questionable statistics, and lag behind two or three months between the time period they cover and the time they are shared with the board.”

Other documents posted on the Museum Foundation’s website, she said, including business plans and exhibit plans, “are vague and lacking in specifics,” and in some cases have been edited after being posted and information on them deleted.

Mannel disagreed.

The foundation, she said, “is fulfilling its obligations under the lease agreement, and working hard to support the mission of the museum.”

Mvsevm Board Member Quits