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May 17, 2007 8:08 am US/Central
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Newly-Opened Park Funded By Ousted CEO
by Jason DeRusha
Minneapolis (WCCO) ―
The ousted CEO of UnitedHealth cut the ribbon on a brand new Minneapolis park Wednesday night.
William McGuire and his wife Nadine spent $8 million of their non-profit foundation's money to lease the land for Gold Medal Park from the city.
The ribbon-cutting was certainly not what McGuire envisioned when he first agreed to lease the property more than a year ago, when he was still the hugely successful CEO of one of the nation's largest health insurance corporations.
But last October, McGuire agreed to step down after federal investigators started looking into a stock scandal at the Minnetonka-based company.
McGuire and others were accused of backdating stock options, a practice that allegedly netted the CEO hundreds of millions of dollars.
A public relations person didn't want McGuire to talk with WCCO-TV, but he agreed to an interview. When asked about being in a different place in his life as compared to a year ago, he said it didn't affect his attitude about the grand opening.
"I think we're part of the community, we're always happy when the community advances and opens up and changes for the better," said McGuire. "We're excited. Doesn't matter what we're doing at that point in time."
After that, the public relations representative ended the interview.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak acknowledged the tricky balance of honoring McGuire's contribution, yet withholding judgment on the stock option backdating scandal.
"Obviously there are all sorts of issues swirling around," said Rybak. "But what we have here is a clear sense of somebody with some resources who could have taken them all for themselves, but instead they put it into the community. That's not the least thing controversial to me. That's a civic gesture."
McGuire's foundation leased the land for the park from the city for 10 years. He's pledged to maintain the property for that entire time.
The park used to be a surface parking lot. Now it has 300 mature trees and 20 handcrafted benches.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)