On June 10, Judge Gerald Wolf of the Rice County District Court issues an Order [PDF, 22 pages] regarding the St. Olaf College Petition and Amended Petition.
Judge Wolf's Introduction to the legal Analysis portion of the Order reads as follows:
The Court recognizes that the sale of WCAL is neither before the Court at this time nor has it ever been before the Court. However, it is almost impossible to discuss the issues raised by St. Olaf's Petition without first discussing the sale of WCAL and its aftermath.
St. Olaf sold WCAL over the objections of a group of donors (hereafter call SaveWCAL) and without first obtaining Court approval. The sales aftermath has created a host of problems for St. Olaf regarding what can the college do with the restricted donations given to support WCAL and its activities when it no longer owns WCAL.
St. Olaf continues to assert that the donated restricted funds it holds are endowments. However, under the applicable law, these donated restricted funds are actually a trust and St. Olaf is the trustee of the trust. Therefore, St. Olaf will need to comply with the legal requirements to which it is held as the trustee of the funds gifted to it for use by WCAL, regardless of the fact that St. Olaf no longer owns WCAL.
The Minnesota Attorney General is the watchdog of all trusts throughout the state of Minnesota. Deplorably, when St. Olaf made the decision to sell WCAL, no one from the Attorney General's Office intervened to safeguard the trust. The Attorney General's Office was notified by SaveWCAL of the pending sale yet they failed to do anything. The undersigned is absolutely mystified as to why the State Attorney General did not become involved in a sale of trust assets valued at $12 million when it is its statutory obligation to do so. Let's hope this type of activity never happens again.
The undersigned does recognize that there is a newly elected Attorney General who was not in office at the time of the sale. However, the office is painted with the same brush. Her office is tainted with this lapse of duty even though she did not hold her present position at the time. Regardless of who was serving as Minnesota Attorney General at the time of the sale, the office as an institution has a duty to the people of Minnesota to serve as guardian of all trusts created and operated in this state. The Minnesota Attorney General's Office failed in its duty in this case.
The only watchdog looking out for the interests of the trust in this case was the Respondent, the non-profit organization SaveWCAL. SaveWCAL raised the alarm when they first learned of the sale of WCAL by St. Olaf, but neither St. Olaf nor the Minnesota Attorney General's Office paid any heed to SaveWCAL's warning.
Now, the Court is faced with a plethora of issues to unravel in the aftermath of St. Olaf's unapproved sale of WCAL and the Minnesota Attorney General's Office's breach of its duties in this case.
SaveWCAL will be releasing more information about the Order and our actions in response to the Order over the course of the next few days.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
What a scathing introduction.
Wow. All I can say is "Good job, SaveWCAL!" I didn't see how SaveWCAL could prevail in its rearguard action, but you appear to have prevailed. I am amazed and thankful that you and SaveWCAL hung in there.
I can't thank you enough for your hard work and dedication to this. I worked at WCAL for 5 years. I am so moved by this news.
Regardless of the Minnesota attorney general being so derelict in failing to perform her duties, your final comment raises hopes to new height for the return of WCAL to Manitou Heights (where it has always belonged):
"Now, the Court is faced with a plethora of issues to unravel in the aftermath of St. Olaf's unapproved sale of WCAL and the Minnesota Attorney General's Office's breach of its duties in this case."
As Ed Sullivan used to say on his TV talent hour well before your time, and would say now if he here still in this life, "Good shew, SaveWCAL!"
I commend SaveWCAL for pursuing this issue. Though not active with your group, thanks to SaveWCAL for all your work!
Nicely scathing towards the AG's office and St. Olaf.
Sweet vindication for SaveWCAL.
Keep it up!
Well, Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm grateful to be on an email list that brought this hope for JUSTICE in today's Big Biz World.
I'm eager to hear the full opinion. I noticed the Wiki article on WCAL could use some tweaking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WCAL-FM.
By the way, I've gotten a little involved with our local public radio station … I think I'll be on-air during their next membership drive. They understand FULLY the tragedy of WCAL.
Like Admiral Farragut said in the Spanish-American War at the turn of the 20th century, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!!" (I think I've quoted that correctly.)
I hope also that the group is also pursuing supports for a new St. Olaf based public radio station, even if it is off campus. I feel the support is there from your group as well as alumni and Northfield/area residents as well. On other St. Olaf issues, I hop the new President has a new team and more new Regents that respect the College's heritage and clean up the old money seekers over the education and honesty seekers like me and so many others that have become less enchanted with many in the administration. It seems they always want to compete with Carleton and others and not be what the founders and great early alumni envisioned it to be. May a new WCAL for the 21st century be born!
It would be nice if an unbiased analysis of this could be posted. By my reading I see that 4 of the 6 items that St. Olaf was petitioning for were granted. And while it's true that the judge harshly criticized both St. Olaf and the AG's office, he also granted 2/3 of St. Olaf's petition. I can't tell if this is a "win/win" or lose/lose situation. Can someone explain for us non-legal types?
SaveWCAL responds:
Thanks for asking this question. Of course, SaveWCAL has an understandably inherent bias re our point of view. That said, we have always tried to present the issues in a factual and straight-forward way.
The issues — and the case itself — are incredibly complex. Believe us, we know because we've been dealing with it for almost four years!
Things are not always as they appear. While at face value, it may appear that St. Olaf has been granted four out of its six requests, we note what we have said in a recent posting regarding St. Olaf's press release about the order.
The Court granted the request to use the restricted endowment funds (Exhibit A). The value of the gifts in that category is approximately $460,000 (when the Eckberg donation is included). The ruling also allows St. Olaf to use the Munck bequest of $150,000 and the distribution from the Turbis trust of $100,000. The total of these donations is approximately $710,000. The use of these funds is limited to supporting the "core WCAL activities" to which we referred above.
The Court denied the Petition with respect to two of the major gift categories — the restricted non-endowment gifts (Exhibit B) and the undocumented gifts (Exhibit C). The value of the gifts in Exhibit B is approximately $657,000. The value of the gifts in Exhibit C is approximately $370,000. This is a total of $1,027,000. So the value of the gifts in the denied categories is substantially greater than the value of the gifts in the allowed categories.
In addition, the Court restricted the use of the $1 million donation by Senior [Emeritus] Regent Leonard Hoeft solely to "core WCAL activities." St. Olaf did not include the Hoeft donation in its Petition or Amended Petition. The College had represented to the Court that it had Hoeft's consent to withdraw his donation from the WCAL endowment and claimed there were therefore no restrictions on the use of the donation. When the Special Master determined that Hoeft had never given his consent, the Court decided — on its own — to include the restriction in its ruling.
You can read more at our posting: "In which SaveWCAL deconstructs St. Olaf's Press Release about the Rice County District Court Order".
There's also been an interesting discussion, in which SaveWCAL President Ruth Sylte has been participating, of this on the Northfield-based blog, Locally Grown at:
http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/archives/3812/
This morning, June 18, Northfield radio station KYMN AM 1080 featured the SaveWCAL campaign on their morning show. Jeff Johnson interviewed Sylte and asked many good questions that help to "connect the dots." We hope to have the audio available for download soon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you – many times over – for what you've done and are doing. We know it's a tremendous amount of work, time, and dedication. Your insistence on truth and the outworking of justice are exemplary. WCAL was STOLEN, it's obvious who was really behind it all, and according to Proverbs 6:30,31 the thief must repay sevenfold!
"30 Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry;
31 But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold; He must give all the substance of his house." Amen!
Congratulations on this ruling–it reflects lots of hard work from all concerned. i've read some of the articles (and reader comments) with interest! It's hard to believe st olaf could be so cavalier about its donors and that the AGl's office was so uninterested in looking after donor interests. All the best to the SaveWCAL crew!