Evergreen Museum Admits Insolvency, Requests Seal on Embarrassing Documents

The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum | Wikimedia Commons

The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, whose landlord is The Falls Event Centers (TFEC), recently filed documents in bankruptcy admitting that "the Museum will be unable to meet all of its financial obligations in 2019" (page 25 of the Motion for Relief from Stay). In the same filing, the museum board also references supporting agreements between the Museum and TFEC which it has requested to be sealed in a separate motion. Fortunately, these same documents happen to have been forwarded along to me some time ago, which I you can view at this link.

The documents requested to be put under seal are the Waterpark Transition Agreement, dealing with revenues from the Evergreen Wings and Waves Waterpark, the Campus Use Agreement, dealing with how the campus may be used, and the Aircraft Loan and Display Agreement, which details how TFEC may handle display aircraft acquired in the bankruptcy. The Museum has alleged that TFEC had broken all of these agreements almost immediately (in direct contradiction to what the museum board had previously stated in public), stating "TFM has repeatedly defaulted under the Financing Agreement since its formation [...] TFM defaulted no less than six (6) times in the first year" (page 15 of the Motion for Relief). You may remember that this is in line with the alarms I raised over TFEC's dealings with the museum over a year ago which TFEC and Steve Down, with the support of the museum board, attempted to silence. For example, the suppressed documents clearly show that the removal of planes from the museum was in direct violation of their agreements, despite public statements made otherwise by the Evergreen Board President Rasmussen.

As such, it is not surprising to me that the museum board would attempt to keep the referenced contracts under wraps, as it reveals both an embarrassing inconsistency in their own statements, as well as bringing to the fore heavy implications of having actively colluded with Steve Down, Neubauer, and others in TFEC's schemes to defraud. The museum simply cites "the potential harm to the Museum and the Debtors that may result from unrestricted disclosure of such information" (page 2 of the motion for Leave to File Certain Confidential Agreements), but in my own view the damage has already been done. At this point the museum is merely trying to keep it out of the public eye.

These documents should not be sealed because they are part of a pattern where the museum, as a public benefit corporation, has been actively trying to cover up collusion with a felony fraud. The attempt to keep these documents under wraps is also consistent with consistent attempts to keep TFEC's fraud and the museum's collusion with it private. The local News Register newspaper, who we initially attempted to warn of the ongoing fraud at the museum only to be rebuffed by the paper's owner Jeb Bladine, appears to have been complicit with this, and we also have reason to believe that the McMinnville city attorney may have redacted information under pressure, indirectly or otherwise, which would further implicate the Evergreen Board and TFEC in the felony fraud. As some may remember, TFEC also tried to sue myself and Paul Peterson for $20 million in an attempt to silence us, with the support of the Evergreen Board.

In any case, I am glad to see the museum board moving in the direction of reality. This extensive filing by the museum in bankruptcy confirms nearly all the issues we have been sounding warnings about which the museum has, up until this point, flatly denied. I will be going over the filings in more detail over the coming days. Now, if they would just be a bit more transparent, that would go a long way towards repairing their damaged credibility.