Joel Kurth reports* in the Detroit News that "[a]n emergency manager has the power to sell off municipal assets, and a bankruptcy could force liquidation. That has prompted speculation the museum's holdings, worth more than $1 billion, could be vulnerable."

Quite so.

Kurth quotes DIA executive and honorary board member Nettie Seabrooks: "Selling off assets? I can't go there because it's too scary. It's very complicated and very complex. That's why we need to become financially stable. Nobody knows where this is going."

Not at all. A competent cultural asset manager could generate great cultural returns from the cultural value of Detroit's cultural assets while generating a very substantial cash income from their financial value. The Founders Society is stuck in the past, so lost that they can't even respond to competent advice.

So, while the Founders Society seeks to have regional taxpayers take on the very same financial obligation that got the Founders Society control of the DIA in 1998, they show they don't know where this is going. They're not thinking far enough ahead to account for what will happen in a bankruptcy for Detroit. Detroit won't avoid bankruptcy just because regional taxpayers cover salaries and expenses for the Founders Society. Once a bankruptcy judge orders Detroit's DIA masterpieces sold off to satisfy Detroit's accelerated financial obligations, the Founders Society will collect those regional taxes for their salaries and expenses to guard an empty building.

This doesn't have to happen. The many, many billions of dollars Detroit has in its DIA art collection can generate sufficient cash to run the DIA and generously support Detroit's other arts, sciences and humanities programs, and essential public safety services to boot. Getting a proper return for Detroit's enormous investment in the DIA just takes intelligent asset management.


*http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...eum-operations