State report on Alamo's keepers is disturbing

The state Office of the Attorney General has issued a disturbing report on its 16-month investigation of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and the organization's 107-year-old stewardship of the Alamo, the most revered historic site in Texas.

In the words of the report, the investigation found that "the DRT did not properly preserve and maintain the Alamo, misused state funds for the organization's own benefit, failed to recognize or address conflicts of interest, and allowed its own organizational prerogatives to interfere with its duty to act in the best interests of the State of Texas and the Alamo."

Equally distressing, the report says that in legislative hearings on DRT's operations last year, "testimony by the DRT's representatives was less than forthright and failed to disclose material information to the Texas Legislature."

Those hearings led the Legislature to transfer master responsibility for the Alamo's preservation and operations to the General Land Office, which has since corrected or at least addressed most of the immediate maintenance issues at the San Antonio landmark. The DRT continues to operate the Alamo under direct General Land Office supervision.

That resolution seemed appropriate last year when the Legislature acted. But in light of the findings of the Office of the Attorney General investigation, it seems at least worthy of reconsideration now.

The report outlines more than simple bumbling by volunteers who for decades have devoted their time to keeping the Alamo open and helping it to become the most visited tourist site in the state. The report asserts what appears to have been outright deception by some DRT officers in reporting to the organization's own board. It also lays out a timeline of misleading statements made by the organization's general counsel to the Legislature and the OAG investigators.

Karen Thompson, DRT's current president-general, said in a statement Tuesday that she was "shocked at the outrageously inaccurate conclusions with the report."

The report, Thompson said, "includes only interviews with disavowed members and former employees, is not an accurate description of DRT in 2012." She also said the DRT is preparing a formal response.

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, a leader of questioning during the Legislature's DRT hearings last year, thanked the attorney general's investigators and commended DRT volunteers. She added, "Now it is time for Texas to move on."

The DRT should move quickly in preparing its response. While it is clear that much has changed in the months that the organization's Alamo operations have been under General Land Office supervision, it also is clear that the attorney general's investigative report contains extensive detail that is damaging to the DRT's reputation.

For example, the report says the Office of the Attorney General "agreed to defer to the Legislature's policy-making prerogative and is therefore not pursuing remedial legal action against the DRT."

The "remedial legal action" possibly is a reference to what the report says was misuse of state funds for the benefit of the organization rather than the state, even to the point of using state funds to pay legal fees connected with fighting the investigation and legislative action.

That such legal action might have been justified except for a polite agreement to let sleeping dogs lie should leave all Texans uncomfortable, both with the DRT for what this report says it did and with state officials for letting things get so bad in the first place.

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