Kudos to Commissioner Dan Ryan for holding the Regional Arts and Culture Council accountable (“Ending arts council contract a necessary step to build a stronger arts ecosystem,” Aug. 20. Many elected leaders express how much they like the arts, without doing the hard work of actually supporting the arts. Ryan is reining in an organization that is out of touch with the needs of the local arts community and has shown no interest in changing how it does business.
I spent five years working for former Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish and served as liaison to RACC and the arts community. I know from personal experience how unapologetically unaccountable RACC has been to the public for the over $7 million they receive annually from city coffers. RACC cannot account for huge amounts of money it received to create new public art, such as money for a Rosa Parks mural in Peninsula Park that never materialized, yet it resisted minimal reporting requirements.