Adams Center apologizes to Missoula AIDS Council

The Adams Center administration, after keeping quiet over a $75,000 donation effort for the Elton John AIDS Foundation, apologized to the Missoula AIDS Council last week for not being more open about its activities.

The council first learned of the donation, promised by the Adams Center in a memo to Elton John’s agent, by phone last Thursday from a member of the Adams Center administration. After meeting with Adams Center Director Mary Muse last Friday, the council sent a letter to University of Montana President George Dennison outlining its concerns. 

“It’s disappointing to me, and to other non-profit operators, to see that much money leave the community when there are needs at home,” Keri McWilliams, the council’s executive director, told the Montana Kaimin Wednesday.

McWilliams said Dennison responded to the council’s letter via e-mail, agreeing that better communication between the Adams Center and local organizations should have existed. Dennison also reiterated that the donation is a private fundraising effort and the University has not contributed funds in any way, McWilliams said.

Muse said she got the feeling the council was “delighted” to see someone involved with John’s Foundation and the effort to increase AIDS awareness. She said she believes there aren’t “two sides” to the issue of the donation, rather the Adams Center and the council are “pulling from the same end.”

“Our intention is not to take money away from them,” Muse said.

But McWilliams called into question the benefits Muse has claimed will come from the donation. She said the Adams Center has primarily targeted Missoula businesses to help raise the $75,000, and 60 percent of donations to the council come from local businesses. In short, the donation did have an impact on local AIDS relief, McWilliams said.

McWilliams added that, in addition to feeling an edge of competition from the Adams Center’s efforts, the council felt overlooked as a potential resource or beneficiary in the fundraising process. The council has a strong relationship with UM in regards to donations, and would have welcomed some level of inclusion in the donation, she said.

“That also leaves us disappointed, that we weren’t brought into the equation in any way,” McWilliams said.

Muse has repeatedly defended the donation as nothing more than a cog in the mechanics of securing a second John concert, a cog with the added bonus of benefiting AIDS awareness. The concert, she claims, will benefit Missoula, UM and the state of Montana by building the area’s reputation and pouring money into Missoula’s economy.

But, McWilliams argued, a second concert does nothing to benefit AIDS relief in Missoula, at UM or in the state of Montana.

“I agree that it’s good for the economy,” McWilliams said. “But it doesn’t directly benefit the people we (the council) serve.”

According to the contract between the Adams Center and promoter AEG Live, $2 from every ticket sold will be donated to John’s foundation, a standard practice with most John concerts.

Despite the council’s concerns, Muse and McWilliams agreed the Friday meeting was a positive one, a “good visit,” as Muse put it.

“I felt both of us came away with more information, and a better sense of each other’s goals,” Muse said.

During the meeting, Muse explained to the council the nature of the negotiations behind the donation. The council in turn outlined the nature of its operations for Muse, operations which include building HIV/AIDS awareness in Montana and providing resources for the estimated 500 individuals in Montana now living with AIDS.

“She (Muse) was very receptive to learning what we do as an agency,” McWilliams said.