Agency to Probe Charges Against Statue Project
The General Accounting Office will investigate allegations of impropriety in the restoration of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, officials said Monday.
GAO, a congressional watchdog agency, said that it had received a letter from Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.), seeking an audit of financial reports of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and requesting a legal analysis of an October, 1983, memorandum that established the foundation’s obligations to the Interior Department.
Vento heads the House Interior Committee’s subcommittee on national parks, which held hearings June 27 into allegations by a fired federal official that the project was “in a total state of chaos.”
Garnet Chapin, dismissed from his job as special assistant to the director of the National Park Service, charged that the foundation, which oversees the project, had failed to submit appropriate records for review as specified in the memorandum.
Foundation officials have denied any improprieties in the $230-million project.
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