There is a new wrinkle in the ongoing saga over the Kennedy Center: Officials with the institution are warning of “certain financial collapse” and that restoring Donald Trump‘s name may be the only way to get him to “lead the financial rescue of the center.”
A draft board resolution, outlined in court documents on Monday, states that the center “is in such a precarious fiscal position that it will not be able to support its payroll obligations, nor routine maintenance contracts within a matter of weeks.”
The resolution also states that Trump, who serves as the center’s chairman, has offered to
to “step in and raise the necessary funds to keep the Center from bankruptcy during its much needed renovation.” But also adds that the board “is seeking to appropriately recognize and acknowledge President Trump for his well timed proffer of fiscal rescue. The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center.”
The draft resolutions were submitted in court documents by attorneys for Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the board who fought an earlier effort to add Trump’s name to the institution and plans to close the complex for two years for renovations.
The Washington Post first reported on the proposed resolutions, as well as another in which the board would vote on Tuesday to shut down the center. That resolution follows a recent incident in which a leak after heavy rains caused a portion of the ceiling plaster to detach.
A federal judge ruled in May that the board lacked authority to add Trump’s name to the center late last year, and he ordered it removed from Kennedy Center materials and the front facade.
More recently, the board voted on a new resolution to add Trump’s name as many as three times to the center’s grounds. On the facade, below its official name, “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” would read “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
Once a $100 million threshold is met for an endowment the board set up for the center, per the resolution, a line would be added to read, “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
The board also voted to designate “the physical site and grounds upon which the center sits” as the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
The judge, Christopher Cooper, is currently considering whether the new naming proposal complies with his earlier ruling.
The board also voted last month to close most of the complex for renovations. Cooper is holding a scheduling conference on Tuesday on the latest closure plan. Cooper’s injunction also prohibited the institution from closing unless the board more fully considered the impact of a shutdown.
More to come.
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