Not only was Kermit’s suggestion snarky (FF: 11:00), you could tell he was pretty much fed up with the money bleeding going on at the Pavilion. Anderson and Staggers both voted against the Pavilion’s new gift shop.
The plan is for the Pavilion to build a Northside gift shop to sell more art related items, not a bad idea in itself, except, the Pavilion already has a gift shop (that they have made smaller) on the Southside. It sells stuff like plastic dinosaurs and magnetic rocks. They also have a nice gift shop area in the reception of the Visual Arts Center. I guess I would be all for an expanded gift shop at the VAC, if the VAC stopped charging admission to get in there dirty galleries and miss hung giclee print exhibits, and if the Pavilion actually focused on making money instead having inter-office shananigans.
Larry Toll (1/2 CEO of the Pavilion) said that the problem is people can’t find the VAC because the escalators were never put in. Well jinkies, Larry, after 14 years, you would think you would get around to it instead putting bandaids on the problem (I think the city budgeted for the escalator installation in 2015).
Personally, I think it is time to end the contract with the WP’s management company and find a new contractor. And just so we can hold someone accountable for the several financial mis-steps that have been happening over the past 14 years, I suggest a FULL forensic and financial audit of the place before we hand them their pinkslips. Remember the finance and operations director have been there since day one . . . Hmm.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.†– Albert Einstein