The city’s Board of Estimates voted Wednesday to end its contract with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts following impassioned pleas to do the opposite by the beleaguered organization’s interim treasurer and CEO.
The vote by the five-member board was unanimous and unsurprising, and it will take effect Jan. 20.
Rachel D. Graham told board members that she believes she was set up to fail before she had even started her job as the organization’s new CEO on March 15.
She compared the task of restoring the agency to fiscal health after years of mismanagement to “making a hard right turn on the Titanic,” and added that she has had “concerns around the alignment of [the mayor’s] administration with me from the very beginning.”
Graham said she took the job after being assured that BOPA’s contract would be renewed, only to learn that the city had other plans.
“It’s really not fair to not give this body and this president and this staff the actual time to right the ship … absent any real dialogue or conversation,” she said.
Mayor Brandon Scott’s office sent a letter to BOPA’s board on Oct. 16, saying it had decided to end its 22-year relationship with its event-planning organization, citing years of financial mismanagement.
BOE board members did not respond to comments by Graham or by BOPA Interim Treasurer Angela Wells-Sims before proceeding on Scott’s motion to terminate the contract.
Voting in favor of the measure were Scott, City Council President Nick Mosby, City Comptroller Bill Henry, Deputy City Solicitor Stephen Salsbury and Khalil Zaied, director of the city’s Department of Public Works.
But during a news conference held after the meeting, Scott said, “It’s my job to make sure that taxpayer money is spent in an appropriate way” and added: “We are not renewing the contract. The residents of Baltimore deserve better.”
The city is expected to take over many of the functions currently fulfilled by the quasi-governmental agency, which was created by former Mayor Martin O’Malley in 2002. In addition to mounting such marquee city celebrations as Artscape, BOPA has run the popular weekly farmers markets and operated the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower and other event spaces.
Wells-Sims told the board that the incident that precipitated the contract termination — BOPA’s Sept. 18 request for $1.8 million in emergency city funds — has been mischaracterized as a bailout.
In reality, Wells-Sims said, at the time that request was made, BOPA was owed $847,000 “in outstanding accounts receivable from the prior fiscal year.”
Add to that $500,000 that she said the organization had been promised in pandemic relief funds, and approximately $900,000 that BOPA had spent for events for which it had been only partially reimbursed “and we’re talking about almost $2.2 million in outstanding funds,” she said.
“That wasn’t asking for a bailout,” Wells-Sims said. “It was a transparency signal that if we don’t get these funds, we’re going to run into a cash flow issue.”
Scott disagreed with Wells-Sims’ analysis, saying during his news conference: “It’s unfortunate some of the things that were said today, but let me be very clear, the city did not owe the money. We operate on the contract in a quarterly manner.”
And Calvin Young, the mayor’s senior economic adviser, said during the meeting that the city made its third quarter payment of $633,389 to BOPA on Oct. 18 — funds that under the contract weren’t scheduled to be released until December — “to help BOPA stave off a financial shortfall and make payroll.”
Young added: “While we have expressed concern, we have also sought to be helpful.”
Despite Wednesday’s vote, BOPA might retain one of its functions after the contract with the city ends — its designation as the city’s arts council, responsible for distributing $500,000 in state grants annually to local artists and small arts organizations. Withdrawing that designation, which dates to June 17, 2002, would require a new resolution adopted by Baltimore’s City Council.
This year, BOPA’s cash flow problems and the turmoil swirling around the agency have resulted in lengthy delays in getting many of those grants into the hands of Baltimore’s artists.
Scott said during his news conference that a decision has not yet been made as to whether BOPA, a city agency, or an as-yet unnamed outside nonprofit will take over the arts council’s responsibilities.
“Whether BOPA keeps the arts designation… will be worked out as we go through the transition,” he said.
But a reference made during the meeting by Young may indicate in which direction the mayor is leaning.
“In the coming months, we will collaborate with our fiscal agency, the Baltimore Civic Fund, to distribute $500,000 in artist relief funding,” Young said.
Scott and Mosby have said that before making that decision, they will consider feedback they have received from Baltimore’s creative community — including a petition opposing the cancellation of BOPA’s contract that was submitted to the Board of Estimates in advance of Wednesday’s meeting.
“There are many avenues to enhance our city’s arts support infrastructure,” wrote Maggie Villegas, executive director of the Baltimore Creatives Acceleration Network, “but an adversarial approach is not the way forward. A 90-day transition period is unrealistic and could create chaos, doing harm to our city and its vibrant cultural community.”
Even after the petition was submitted, it continued to circulate online. Jess Solomon-DaCosta, an artist and a former member of the mayor’s Arts & Culture Advisory Committee, wrote on the social media platform X that 150 people had signed the open letter by midday Wednesday.
Have a question about this article? Contact editor Kendyl Kearly at kkearly@baltsun.com.