Tuesday, Jun. 23, 2009
Court OKs Phoebe Hearst Cooke's $100,000 gift to Mission San Miguel
Phoebe Hearst Cooke’s conservators do not object to her $100,000 donation to Mission San Miguel
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closeA local judge has approved a $100,000 donation to Mission San Miguel from billionaire heiress Phoebe Hearst Cooke.
Conservatorship attorneys had no objection to the gift because it was consistent with Cooke’s longstanding giving to the mission, said John Ronca, a San Luis Obispo attorney representing Cooke’s co-conservators — her twin brother, George Hearst Jr., and his son, George Hearst III.
Cooke has given as much as $1.3 million to the mission over the past five years to help it keep running after the devastation of the 2003 San Simeon Earthquake, said the Rev. Ray Tintle, pastor of the San Miguel parish. The earthquake caused large cracks in the church’s sanctuary, and its rebuilding continues today.
“We could not have reopened without her help,” he added.
Cooke said in an interview with The Tribune that she gave to the mission, even though she is not Catholic, because “we Hearsts have always supported the missions.”
The family’s support goes back to her great-grandmother Phoebe Epperson Hearst’s giving the Mission San Miguel a steel cap for its roof, which helped prevent the church from completely collapsing in the last earthquake, Tintle said.
The Hearsts, the largest private landowners in the county, have owned huge tracts of land in San Simeon and the North County near Mission San Miguel since the late 1800s.
The gift, given in memory of Cooke’s late husband, Jack, needed the court’s approval after the 81-year-old granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst was placed under temporary conservatorship by the county public guardian last July.
People who have conservators are presumed to lack the capacity to make contracts; incur debts (except in limited circumstances); sell, transfer, convey, or encumber property; make gifts; delegate powers; and waive any of their rights, according to conservatorship law, Ronca said, quoting chapter and verse from the California code.
Some members of Cooke’s family pointed to several large gifts she made to her friends as proof she needed the care and protection of a conservator. Her relatives believed she was vulnerable to people taking advantage of her in her advancing years, according to court documents.
In spite of the conservatorship’s ability to oversee Cooke’s care and financial affairs — and Cooke’s resistance over the year to her brother’s control — Ronca insisted that all of Cooke’s rights have not been taken away.
Cooke retains many personal powers, including the capacity to vote, marry, give informed consent for medical decisions, make a will, control an allowance and enter into transactions to provide the necessities of life, he said.
George Hearst Jr. and George Hearst III will take over on July 1 as her permanent conservators.
As such, they will accommodate Cooke’s wishes if they do not impose an unreasonable expense on the conservatorship estate, Ronca said.
That estate could worth as much as $2 billion, according to a declaration to the court by Cooke’s San Luis Obispo attorney, Michael Collins.
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