An attorney representing the Austin-based Mitte Foundation delivered a presentation during a Sept. 6 Brownsville City Commission meeting workshop that he said was intended to “set the record straight” on the foundation’s relationship with the city.
The attorney, Ray Chester, said his presentation was in response to “vicious attacks and innuendo that have been leveled against the foundation and members of this commission by an extremely vocal minority.”
He apparently was referring at least in part to public comments made during a previous city commission meeting by Brownsville resident Ashley Alshaer, who claimed that she is being targeted for questioning the circumstances surrounding the hiring of an employee at the Children’s Museum of Brownsville and his subsequent arrest on child pornography charges.
Daniel Benjamin Molstad, son of Mitte Foundation Executive Director Coleith Molstad, was arrested Jan. 27 by federal authorities. Chester said during the workshop presentation that he does not dispute the “terrible facts” of the case, but argued that “these facts have been twisted in a very unfair way to be used against the Mitte Foundation.”
In public comments at the Sept. 6 meeting, before Chester’s presentation, Alshaer said she has been subject to public intimidation and threats of legal action since sharing her “confidential concerns” in an email to Mayor Trey Mendez, who she said shared her message in a group text with Coleith Molstad, the children’s museum and Dist. 3 Commissioner Roy De los Santos, who has a paid seat on the board of the Mitte Foundation, which is a separate entity from the Mitte Cultural District, where the children’s museum is located.
Also during her comments she referred to “financial conflicts of interest between city commissioners and nonprofit organizations” without offering specifics.
Regarding the children’s museum, Chester said no one involved with the Mitte Foundation, including Coleith Molstad and De los Santos, had anything to do with the hiring of Daniel Molstad, adding that the foundation plays no role in governing operations at the museum.
“They are completely separate organizations,” Chester said. “The only connection is that the children’s museum is located in the Roy F. & Joanne Cole Mitte Cultural Education Center, paid for by the Mitte Foundation in 1999. Mr. Molstad’s punishment will be decided by federal judge and I’m sure justice will be served. But the Mitte Foundation had nothing to do with this and they do not deserve to be vilified for the conduct of this person.”
Mitte donated $3 million to the Dean Porter Park renovation project in 1998. The city had already created the cultural district, but renamed it the “Mitte Cultural District” as a gesture of appreciation, Chester said, adding that since then the foundation has donated approximately $6.9 million to the city. The organization is now run by Mitte’s grandson, actor R.J. Mitte, who has renewed the foundation’s focus on Brownsville, his grandfather’s birthplace.
Chester said that although the foundation has requested nothing in return for its donations to the city over the years, he is aware of public statements from Brownsville residents accusing the foundation of stealing millions of dollars from the city.
“This is absurd,” he said. “We have never received nor asked for one cent from the city of Brownsville, directly or indirectly.”
The Mitte Cultural District has received money from the city’s Hotel Occupancy Tax, meant to support activities that bring overnight tourism to Brownsville, though the Mitte Foundation has not.
“I’ve seen statements that the Mitte Foundation is buying up properties as an investment, or in other words to profit by the city of Brownsville’s growth,” Chester said. “That’s also absolutely untrue. We’re a nonprofit organization. All of the properties that we’ve bought to enhance the cultural district are going to be donated or granted to qualifying organizations. You have our word on that.”
Chester told commissioners that such “scandalous and unfounded” accusations are affecting the foundation’s relationship with the city.
“The question then becomes does the city of Brownsville want the Mitte Foundation to weather these slanderous attacks and continue our charitable work here? Because we would like to. We would like to continue giving to Brownsville. But we would respectively ask for some support from the commission just to set the record straight in the face of these attacks.”
