February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It is unlikely that the mutually felt ill feelings and mistrust will miraculously evaporate in the skies over Westchester County after the order of settlement from the New York State Attorney General’s office in the matter of surplus funds generated by the county’s Great Hunger memorial project.
Clearly, the depth of mistrust between the Great Hunger Memorial Committee and the Great Hunger Foundation is matched only by the importance both sides attach to the actual existence of a work that is intended to remind everyone of a time when there was precious little money, or anything else, for that matter, to argue over. But the move by the attorney general is to be welcomed if for no other reason than it gives both sides the opportunity to back away from a confrontation that has caused more than a small degree of discomfort in the county’s large Irish-American community.
Suffice it to say, the committee’s initial concerns were not entirely surprising given the decidedly hamfisted manner in which the foundation moved to mothball the body that raised the great bulk of the money needed to put the memorial in place. The foundation, on the other hand, always enjoyed a right to its good name unless a case of misappropriation was proven in court. This did not transpire. It now becomes the task of the foundation, with the attorney general’s oversight, to ensure that the surplus funds be paid out in a manner that covers all outstanding bills while providing for a couple of worthy Westchester charities named in the order of settlement.
We trust that the foundation is happy to do this and that the committee is equally content to see the money disbursed in a manner that it has advocated from the start of this most regrettable row.