Edited sentence: As a stipulation of the release, the director and board of the museums were fired, and new leadership was formed.As of 2007, the museum's future remains uncertain, despite the facade of stability it attempts to maintain.As the alienated community rejected the museum as an expensive elitist playground, the director and museum board damaged relations with the donor community, drastically increasing the museum's burden on the city.Controversy and Independence.Immediately he began the ego-driven campaign to replace the older art deco building and construct a new one--the result being the current location.In response to this, the museum's directorate eliminated all but a handful of full-time positions and even sent many employees into early retirment.In the late 1980s, the museum came under the directorship of Timothy Chester.Relationships rapidly worsened with the city and accusations of financial mismanagement were levied by both parties against each other.The city retains legal ownership of all exhibits, artifacts and the building itself, but leases them to the museum's foundation for a nominal fee of $1 per year, for the next century, with the option to extend the lease for an additional 50 years.The expensive effort exhausted a donor community and strained the city's ability's to support the museum.The museum came under futher criticism in 2003 when the full-time staff unionized.The new leaders of the museum are now struggling to re-build relationships with the community, donors, and other institutions; while keeping the fincancially crippled museum afloat and eliminating any residual elements of the corruption and mismanagment of previous leadership.The ultimate result of this was, in 2006, the museum ceased to be a city department.This reduction in staffing was viewed by many as especially cruel, as the museum had just enjoyed its most successful year, partly in thanks to hosting a travelling Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.This relationship now under greater strain, museum leadership began to drive the museum to move away from dependence on the city.Though the new building was initially popular, increasing prices and the use of the museum as a convention center for parties and other events instead of display of community artifacts and efficient use of exhibit space resulted in dropping numbers and an increasingly antagonistic attitude towards the museum in the city