Sold !

That’s what happened recently when the Milwaukee Public Museum Board decided to divest itself in the Costa Rican Trimbina rain forest.

You may ask yourself, how did the museum even acquire Trimbina? The answer is simple - it was donated. Donors included the late Jack Puelicher whose generous donation also made possible the Puelicher Butterfly wing that graces the front of the Museum. Financier Doug Ziegler provided the rest.

Because of bungling and near criminal administrative negligence, Museum finances are still strained — an improvement over the nearly bankrupt position that former Museum President Mike Stafford and money guy Terry Gauette put the museum in. Staffords bungling predecessor, Roger Bowen didn’t help but it appears that Stafford knew Museum finances were imploding and he sought to hide that fact from the board until such time that it was impossible to hide. By swiftly expanding offerings from the museum while not expanding revenue streams (expenditures nearly doubled in the 3 years leading up to the financial meltdown), the museum endowment was frittered away even as this information was hidden from board members.

Sadly, current museum President and Republican party member Dan Finley has agreed with his partisan pal, County Executive Scott Walker who wants the museum to sell off Trimbina. This approach goes hand in hand with Walker’s approach of selling off County land to pay for operating expenses.

Having served on the Milwaukee Public Museum Board for 6 years, I can’t mince words.

I think it’s mistaken. I think it’s misguided. I think it sets a terrible precedence.

The museum is not simply a place where you store old stuff. Board members should embrace its research projects which add to our community by expanding our understanding of science. Trimbina serves as inspiration for exhibits that have already been built and could serve as a model for exhibits yet to be dreamed. It serves as an opportunity to look further and reach for new ideas and inspire yet untapped research or even new discoveries.

The quick, cheap sale of Trimbina is a slap in the face to those that donated the land and to those board members who had the vision to accept the generous donation.

For those of you who do not have a good sense for some of the things that Trimbina has brought, here’s a snippet from the Journal-Sentinel.

It was the model for the rain forest exhibit that the museum opened in 1988. It was the source of some of the exotic insect species that inhabit the Puelicher Butterfly Wing, opened in 2000, and the “Bugs Alive!” exhibit, opened in 2003.

And it was the laboratory for Allen Young, emeritus curator of zoology, as he studied the links between the forest’s health and its cacao trees. Young’s research led to the museum’s introduction of the dark chocolate Cacao de Vida bar.

Selling off assets to meet operating expenses is a terrible precedence. If there is any silver lining in this, and it takes a great deal of strain to find one, it is that philanthropist Lynde Uihlein will now own Trimbina.