The debate over appointments to the Aurora Civic Center Authority board may finally be over, but the scrutiny is only beginning.
The Aurora Civic Center Authority owns the Paramount Theatre, the Copley Theatre, Paramount School of the Arts and North Island Center, and manages the city-owned RiverEdge Park and Stolp Island Theatre.
In a split vote last week, the City Council approved the slate of nominees to the Aurora Civic Center Authority board, which Mayor John Laesch touted as the most diverse in the group’s history.
Diversity is certainly something to celebrate, and bringing fresh voices to an organization is usually considered a healthy thing.
But three aldermen voted against the mayor’s slate, while another recused himself. And another City Council member, who had been vocal about her concerns over Laesch’s choices, voted “present” after wrestling with her decision “up to the last minute.”
That’s because Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, had “so many mixed feelings” over this latest controversy surrounding ACCA.
For one thing, she told me later, Laesch had every right as mayor to choose his own board. But what bothered her was the process that was used.
City Council, she insisted, should have been given the opportunity to vote separately on each nominee, rather than approve the slate as a whole. The reason: While some were excellent additions, other appointees left her with questions – particularly about their ability to raise private dollars.
A FOIA request, for example, showed a vast range of financial support among board members, including three new additions who donated $10 or less to the Paramount in the last five years.
That concern is not a small one. With the city significantly reducing its financial support for ACCA, fundraising has become more important than ever.
The organization can no longer rely as heavily on taxpayer dollars and must increasingly look to donors, sponsors and community partners to sustain the nationally-recognized Paramount Theatre and ACCA’s other outstanding arts programs.
Among Smith’s biggest disappointments was the removal of longtime board member John Savage, an aggressive fundraiser and generous donor who enjoyed broad community support.
She was also troubled by the removal of Cynthia Latimer. With the mayor’s office highlighting the diversity of the new board, there is indeed irony in the fact this outstanding ambassador for African Americans and Aurora itself was not asked to return.
Whether one agrees with the appointments or not, the conversation now has to move beyond the who to the what: What will this board do with their seats?
Laesch has long argued ACCA needs to strengthen its fundraising efforts and become less dependent on city dollars – a criticism even Paramount officials acknowledge. And those expectations haven’t gone away just because different names are on the board.
In fact, there is now a brighter spotlight on this group.
New members have an opportunity to prove the mayor made the right choices. If fundraising improves, supporters can point to this board as evidence that change was needed. If it doesn’t, the question surrounding the appointment process is likely to pop up again.
In the end, the measure of ACCA won’t be the debate over appointments. It will be the dollars it brings in, the partnerships it builds and whether it can help ensure Aurora’s top-tier performing arts community continues to thrive with less help from City Hall.
To put it another way, the applause or the criticism will come not from who was cast but how they perform.
dcrosby@tribpub.com
