AWC needs Change & Funding. (in That Order)

BHHS

Some commenters lately have expressed that they value reading my perspective on civic events, even if they do not always fully agree. I am going to take that at face value by airing reflections on a series of topics about which I would not ordinarily feel confident of having proper standing. Doing so will drain my reserves of good will amongst Pittsburgh's brilliant and richly interconnected social activist community, but amassing and guarding such social capital is not the point of the Comet. That project is to foster clear discussion about public matters which are otherwise determined by closed-door intrigue and cynical posturing.

In regards to the August Wilson Center for African-American Culture, let me stipulate some opinions in bullet form so they are not overlooked:

• Pittsburgh absolutely requires just such a Center.
• The mission of the AWC is fine as it stands, and broad enough to attract a wide audience if interpreted broadly.
• Since we just custom-built a facility to house it, appropriately in the premier theater district Downtown, it ought to remain there.
• All cultural arts organizations, especially new ones, require ongoing capital from those few in the community (governments, corporations, foundations and individuals) actually possessing of capital, as well as an inclination to provide amenities which markets cannot alone.
• The fact that errors were made in the past does not make it justifiable to now throw the baby out with the bathwater.

However, the present board of the AWC has run out of community confidence.

Strike that, and let us rephrase it: all the communities which must play a role in financially supporting the Center, have come to possess 100%, rock-solid confidence that the present board of the AWC will fritter away any further funding without transmuting it into cultural offerings.

It's not the presence of the Center which frustrates funders -- it's an empty, derelict, joyless Center.

This is not to deny there are a few entities which would rather loot the assets of the Center than save it. After all, who doesn't like to loot things? But those entities would not stand a chance if the board possessed the confidence it once enjoyed.

I have no presumptions about the nature of said "frittering". Given the challenges we know exist in starting up any nonprofit arts institution, I certainly do not suspect it's a matter of anything coarsely unethical. And I doubt it has to do with any lack of personal competencies.

Guardians.net

Rather, I suspect it has to do with uniformity and entreanchment of the board in terms of background, perspective and approach. Also a certain pride and defensiveness or "siege mentality". It appears as though that establishment political faction which did valuable work in launching the Center, continues to dominate the 501(c)3's governance and vision. That is neither proper nor healthy -- for the Center, for its mission, or for those represented by that faction moving forward.

Recent reporting about the course of the ailing Center has yet to view it through the prism of its two permanent Executive Directors and one Interim Director. From what I begin to gather, the Center did a lot better during its Directorless interlude than at any other period. There must be lessons to be drawn from that; let's call it a "request" for further reporting.

It seems like Pittsburgh is nibbling politely around the edges of stating clearly, "The board needs to go."  But the message is not being acknowledged. Meanwhile with liquidation and cessation looking like a real probability, the public is finally getting exercised about saving the Center, and is very alarmed and hurt over why it appears as though Pittsburgh does not value its AWC4AAC.

So let the Comet make it plain: the AWC board, that is a majority thereof, in the only possible remaining act which can demonstrate an enlightened fealty to its charitable public mission, needs to step back and assist in the replacing of itself.

If that important prerequisite is not undertaken, any grassroots pleadings or demands for financial support for the AWC, no matter how righteous, plain and defensible in the general sense, are going to be riotously rejected by funders and decision-makers. And then those pleadings are going to be disparaged in the crudest, ugliest, most unfair possible terms by the worst possible people.

Pittsburgh deserves an accountable, commonly held, and desperately engaging August Wilson Center. Not any other sort of August Wilson Center. Although it would be a very bad outcome, I personally would rather see it sold off to the Cultural Trust, UPMC or North Korea than continue to function as a sad, cynical and misdirected moral and political write-off. An insurance policy.

Those philanthropic dollars can now be put to better use enriching residents on matters of culture and history elsewhere. Only the AWC board itself can eliminate the need to find elsewheres.

Come to think of it, it is conceivable that the present board would rather see it foreclosed upon than loosen its grip. Community outrage can be extremely useful under the right circumstances. But I hope we're not living in that sort of drama; none of us in Pittsburgh are bright enough to make that kind of thing work.

Monday: Governing amidst Chaos

Touchstone Pictures

The land bank debate heats up:

Rev. Burgess, who tried unsuccessfully to pass land bank legislation a year ago, is a critic of the current proposal by freshman Councilwoman Deb Gross of Highland Park. Councilman Dan Lavelle of the Hill District also has raised concerns. Both fear that the bill does little to ensure input from the affected communities. (P-G, Brian O'Neill)

It sounds like there is an agreement that the goals of land banking are widely sought, but the question is whether a standard board comprised 4 mayoral and 3 Council appointees will sufficiently address community concerns per exploitation and accountability.

The Comet has not yet learned Councilman Burgess's notion of a superior and more equitable governing framework. His 2012 legislation authorized the creation only of an "advisory committee" comprised mostly of executive branch and Authority personnel.

But Pittsburgh shall work it out. Even more interesting in O'Neill's column was Rev's bit about planning revival from Homewood's "prosperous edges" rather than "heart."

For also in Homewood news:

"Normally in community planning, people who don't live near other people are making suggestions for what should happen there. We thought clusters was an easier, cleaner way to focus. And it's like the concept of how to eat the elephant -- one piece at a time." (P-G, Diana Nelson Jones)

Opportunistic corporate gentrifiers have several extremely positive roles to play in the next Pittsburgh. The Comet suspects however that to rebuild our neighborhoods properly, we may really have to "dive in" without these. It has not seemed to be their strongest suit.

WHAT ELSE:

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale is conducting an audit of Pittsburgh Public Schools under the hospitable protection of Mayor Bill Peduto.

The office of State Attorney General Kathleen Kane, in case you missed it, asked six specific questions of the court-appointed August Wilson Center conservator to clarify the whole situation and the conservator's understanding of it before any determination on moving to a receivership. *-BREAKING: Judge is unmoved. Maybe we missed our cue to make a bigger stink, or maybe this is it.

State financial overseers are likely to approve whatever transition buyout and position eliminations schemata will emerge from City Hall, even though fundamentally, no one can know how many of which subsets of employees will take something before it is enacted. So we cannot say whether it is a huge budget saver or simply a wise and modest expenditure compared with the unpredictability of going without.

Finally, the large field of candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania debated in Pittsburgh yesterday. Today slight and steady frontrunner Allyson Schwartz, a seemingly less-progressive candidate, picked up the endorsement of former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy.

Making Murphy potentially important, once again. Being the gentleman, scholar, player and technology enthusiast that he is, we cannot fathom why he is not engaging in one way or another on social media? Let's elevate the conversation.

USAir Scuttles Moon Program

Renke's World of S&A

Well, if the federal government is finding it to be of limited use, and we have problems on Earth...

US Airways has decided to close its $32 million flight operations center in Moon and move the work to Dallas-Fort Worth, where the new American Airlines will be based. 

The move will affect about 600 employees at the center, according to Matt Dinkel, press secretary for U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills. Most of the employees will be offered the chance to transfer, said Todd Lehmacher, a spokesman for American Airlines. (P-G, Mark Belko)

Wait, what? Oh, this is the Airport, or related to it. That old thing. Circa 1992.

It was built at the height of the big airport mall craze, in fact it is an AIRMALL. In the Comet's own modest sample experience, the major airports of the world are not much into that these days. The major airports of the world are for running, being herded and examined, and fueling up. The major train stations of the world, now, there you will see some malls.

Plus, Pittsburgh International has a somewhat absurd people-mover, which is now integral to the system. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

So it was already in somewhat funky overbuilt shape when air travel profitability collapsed. Now it's allegedly getting shabby.

But let's look on the bright sides: At Pittsburgh International Airport, there is surely a lot of space available to make customs and security to flow sensibly. Because truthfully, a lot of airports in North America are confused about that. We can help you build a next generation international terminal from the ground up.

Additionally, we can exploit that airport investment with American-made, cleaner-burning natural petrochemical energy.

In a letter to operations center employees, Tim Campbell, senior vice president of air operations for American Airlines, said the transfer of employees won’t begin to happen for several months. (ibid)

Nice work. The Comet wonders what those waylaid employees think about… everything.

MORE: Trib, John G. Oravecz: Union president says workers are sad, feel as though they have done a good job. It would be hard to leave home. Null Space on airline bashing. Speaking of radio golf.

Reprieve? Wilson Center twitches.

An epilogue to this production in the cycle:

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said he and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto have been quietly trying to broker a plan to salvage the debt-ridden August Wilson Center for African American Arts and expect to make an announcement within the next few days. (Trib, Debra Erdley)

We are all agreed the Center still needs a strategic plan, and a center with community confidence. Anything from having to do with public schools to air rights seems up for debate.

RELATED: We should probably be reading more Wilson and building him less, but c'est la vie. Then again, why fight it?

Squire

UPDATED REFLECTIONS: The only visual design note in Radio Golf was a Tiger Woods poster. That's not nothing. Also there was a solid menu note if the financial sustainability package includes food service. We have refined our preliminary exterior design notes for any new vertical construction thusly: "Brightly painted and well-crafted old home, artfully run down, with Play-salient art pieces adorning it baroquely, as well as a metal fire escape somewhat conjuring a treehouse atmosphere."

More importantly: the insistent message of the actual play -- the culmination of the entire Pittsburgh or Century cycle -- seemed to be:

Conduct your business ethically. Yes, you know what that means already. Yes that can be hard, unfair to you personally, or seem unimportant compared to the great important things you are working on. But there is just no other way besides knowingly living as a total crook. And wherever that puts you, that puts you. (And depending upon what the viewer imagines happens next after the curtain falls, that might not be such a bad prospect.)

We do not feel comfortable describing why Radio Golf was so named. It has to do with the idea that when one works for and then experiences success, it becomes easy to convince oneself that one knows a lot more about achievement than one actually does. It can actually make one a bit dumber about it.

There must be considerably more to the whole Pittsburgh / Century cycle than that, but we have yet to read the preceding nine plays.

NEWS UPDATE: AG Kane and the board recommend a certain new conservator.

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Yinz Town Land Bank: Who shall run it?

Six Revisions

The loyal opposition gets a gold star today for seizing an opportunity to open a ripe discussion.

City Councilors Lavelle, Burgess, Kail-Smith and Harris (in that chronological order) voiced concerns about Councilor Gross's proposed ordinance to supplement the City Code.

The four explained that the proposal may cede too much "Land Bank Power"* to the Mayor, or that it may not sufficiently address the inequitable distribution of "Bankable Land"* across the city (it tends to collect in hard-luck tracts and pockets). These sorts of difficulties they suggested might necessitate more of a Council role at the code or general level.

There remains a special session and a public hearing to be scheduled. Burgess motioned to hold today's considerations, having established that we ought get hype*.

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*- Editor's terms

BONUS: Transition buy-outs and position eliminations: this looks like the ticket.

Introducing, the Dollar Bank Center for Pittsburgh Political Culture

DSTG

Having gotten to this point, it was fairly unavoidable:

"Thus, the conservator is left with an impossible task; that is, to conserve an entity that has no strategic plan and insufficient cash to operate -- and has run out of time," she wrote. (P-G, Mark Belko)

The organization truly did not seem to have any viable strategic plan. It certainly did not have a sufficient communications plan, and sometimes that reflects on overall strategy.

Now we have 1) a sizable, shiny, odd looking building at a nice location Downtown 2) that we had named after local playwright August Wilson and 3) said would be a center for African-American culture.

Actually, we don't have any of those things. Dollar Bank has those things. A local bank, mind you. When it opened, Pittsburgh didn't have an "h".

MORE: On the ailing center's mission as that of a real and metaphorical bridge, from the piping hot Duquesne Whistle. See also Null Space.