Bloggin’ on the Edge

Posted by Scott Spielman at 2:00 AM | Comments

People throughout the Plymouth community breathed a sigh of relief recently when the IRS handed down a ruling that the tax-exempt status of the Plymouth Historical Society and Plymouth Historical Museum would not be revoked.

The museum came under investigation last year after former director Beth Stewart used the museum’s bulk mail permit number to send out political mailings, used the museum newsletter to announce her candidacy and solicited campaign donations and volunteers at museum events. Stewart has since repaid all the costs associated with those events.

A lot has happened since the IRS report came down.

I expected the emails and voice mails that said things like: ‘Shame on you,’ or ‘I hope you’re happy.’ I had an opinion about these alleged misdeeds back then, and it was essentially that, as a director of a non-profit for nearly 20 years, Stewart should have known better and taken extra care not to mingle things and, since her husband, John, was the incumbent and an attorney, he should’ve advised additional caution, too. They didn’t and, rather than owning up to it, they chose to blame the other Republican candidate, Mark Abbo—and the media, of course.

Now they’re trying to blame the incumbent members of the Plymouth Historical Society Board.

Society members will vote on their new board on May 10 and there are 16 candidates vying for 10 seats on the board, with nine incumbents. We’ve received a few things here urging members not to vote for the incumbents, and to take this opportunity to clean house.

There are a couple of things lost in this silly political postscript. First and foremost is the fact that the IRS report didn’t say nothing improper had occurred. In fact, it said the opposite. The society and museum didn’t lose their tax-exempt status or face any tax sanctions because the board acted to correct those actions and make sure they didn’t happen in the future. It concludes:

“Although your tax-exempt status remains unchanged, we caution that future violations of the prohibition on political campaign intervention may result in a loss of that status and/or subject you to tax under section 4955.”

That, to me, says the museum now has to operate like a major league hitter with two strikes against it.

Secondly, this does not take into account what an incredibly awkward position the historical society board was put in, to begin with. They did not commit these actions, but were forced to react to them. They were advised to terminate Stewart—one of the most popular people in the entire Plymouth community. I like Beth; everybody likes Beth. The board members rightfully loved her for the work she did at the museum. That was not a decision they came to lightly, but it was one they felt they had to make.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the society votes next week, and what happens going forward. It’s hard to place any blame on the serving board members, though, who did what they felt like they had to do to protect one of the greatest assets in the Plymouth community.

I think this is a situation where you don’t have to clean everyone out in order to move on to a new page.

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