Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Update Inside UPDATE INSIDE FEBRUARY 2-8, 2011 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 05 Fayetteville Museum of Art THE REPORT The Arts Council’s Consultant Examines the FMOA What is remarkable about Diane Frankel’s draft report on the now defunct Fayetteville Museum of Art is that it is not remarkable. In fact it is a real yawner. The Arts Council funded a study Report Sets Direction for Museum The Circus Comes to the s Comes to the Crown Dateline Dateline Greensboro at conducted by eminently qualified art museum expert Diane Frankel to obtain guidance as to where next to turn to restore a key and essential element in the community’s cultural environment. The study cost $20,000 plus Frankel’s expenses but may have been worth somewhat less. The report has been written in the present tense, as if the FMOA still existed. At the time the study was conducted and the report written it was a weak and struggling entity but now the last vestiges, except for the vacant b onsulting firm is the means by which the FMOA got in so much debt, about $580,000. e out of business and bankrupt. The museum’s consulting firm was to identify deep and willing pockets in the community and determine if enough generosity existed to build a five to ten million dollar new mu cept for the vacant building, are gone. Fayetteville has no museum of art. Hiring a consulting firm Now they are out of bu willing pockets in the c million dollar new museum building to be located in the downtown area. I am a former FMOA e y t about this community and with a general understanding of how organizations are structured, could done for nothing board member but I resigned out of frustration and never learned the outcome of that study except in very general t rms. ability to pay. What th about this community general terms. I do know that the consultants submitted invoices far beyond the museum’s What they were able to advise was exactly the same as any person, knowledgeable person does not. So if they arrive from far away, say San Francisco; they are seen as the source of all that is true and pro person. have done for nothing. But consultants have certain believability about them that the ordinary person does not. all that is true and profound and will deliver solutions to problems that confound the ordinary person. t did not. But failure to deal objectively with the past as a means of avoiding the same mistakes e is in and of itself a mistake. Over a period of about two years a small group of people, most of whom w re board members, set in motion a series of poorly considered decisions which resulted in the ultim d member’s fiduciary responsibility and suggests that board members in the future must be made acutely aware of that responsibility. This is important and should have been stressed to each member as the indebt esulted in the ultimate demise of the 39 year old institution. Ms. Frankel’s report does speak to each board member be made acutely aw each member as the board made decisions that exposed the museum to serious liabilities and Thos indebtedness.. Those decisions led to the now defunct museum’s crushing debt and bankruptcy. The museum’s chro sloppy and incomp reason for withhold problem that the m ommending that a new board address this issue is not particularly helpful. The challenge to be y the new (or interim board) is where to find seed money to begin again while the Stamper Road building sits with a for sale sign displayed at the gate. Those tightly invol chronic financial woes are mentioned in the report and are basically attributed to ompetent bookkeeping. The bookkeeping criticisms are fair and the Arts Council’s or withholding funds is consistent with rules that they are required to follow. But the root oblem that the museum struggled with almost from its inception was lack of money. Simply recommending tha met by the new (or Road building sits Fa etteville city government is responsible for the museum’s demise. The city decided against provividing t o acres of land in Festival Park for the museum’s proposed new building. The report gives this notion s hose tightly involved with the museum during the past two year are adamant in their belief that Fayetteville city go ding two acre gives this notion short shrift as well it should. The new building was a non-starter because of the Ms. Frankel’s draft draft report states that she did not dwell on the museum’s past and she for the most part did not. But fail in the future is in and most of whom were Downtown Developments Senior Corner FTCC INSIDE