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Getting Behind Closed Doors
By Ray Pavlak, Winsted
We in Connecticut are very lucky to have an official such as Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to whom we can turn with a problem and be assured that it will be pursued to a just conclusion, and that we will be treated with genuine concern and respect.
To illustrate this, let me tell you a true story. In 1999, when the development of the Health Center was in its early stages, there were many who worked diligently to see the Center get started and grow. Dick Michaelsen was the president of the Foundation. He had great hopes and dreams for that Center, but disappointingly there were those on the Foundation's board who were satisfied just to have a Health Center in town, and who lacked the imagination or zeal to do something special and exciting when we had the opportunity to be unique.
Dick was a longtime good friend in addition to being pastor of our church for some thirty years. Knowing that he did not receive a salary and that he was not being paid for trips to Hartford and other areas (nor for the other out-of-pocket expenses) when doing Foundation business, we decided to contribute $500 to the Foundation with the request that this money be for the personal use of the president for such purposes.
We saw Dick on a regular basis, as we worked with him on many projects in those early years, and I often asked him if he was being given the money. The answer was no; Dr. Hyde always had reasons for not giving it to him.
Did Dick change or did we change? We saw less and less of him as our ideas regarding how to keep and strengthen the Health Center took different paths. We found him becoming too close to the Nader clique and either unable or unwilling to work against the board’s hardening into the same mold as that of the old board of directors of Winsted Memorial Hospital. That mold consisted of a closed operation, a lack of democracy, and a failure to allow real community representation or involvement in the decisions of the inner circle—characteristics that were a major cause of the closing of our hospital.
Last fall, when my wife, Judy, took her 86-year-old aunt to the emergency room with chest and stomach pains, Dick came by and asked her if he could spend our gift for a bulletin board with a plaque indicating it had been given in memory of her parents. She really had no interest in discussing this possibility at the time, but finally did say that it would probably be okay.
After coming home she told me the story. It bothered me that the Foundation had held on to the money for three years without distributing it as we had stipulated, so we said no to the proposal. Both of us were unhappy with the way the Foundation was going, and decided we wanted the gift returned so that we could give it to a charity which would make better use of it.
We wrote to President Michaelsen telling him of our decision and requesting the return of our gift. After waiting several weeks without a reply, we wrote to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about the problem.
This step produced results. Mr. Blumenthal wrote to President Michaelsen citing a state statute which requires a charity to carry out the wishes of those who make a donation. Recently we received a Foundation check for the $500. Judy and I have decided to give the money to the Winsted Health Center either directly or through the Auxiliary, to be applied toward the purchase of an item on their "wish list" of what is needed at our Health Center.
We realize that our problem was small potatoes when compared to the large-scale concerns facing the Attorney General, who was involved with the Enron scandal, Indian tribe issues, the proposed power cable across Long Island Sound, etc. Still, his pursuit, which involved several letters and phone calls and cited a state statute that needed to be followed, forced the closed door of the Foundation open enough so that the board could slip our check for $500 out through the crack.
Thank you, Richard Blumenthal, for renewing our faith in and trust of our elected officials.
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