Can’t Buy Love
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Founded in 1965, the IAC dispenses information and financial aid to all manner of artists and arts organizations statewide. Under Governor James Thompson, the IAC was headed by an experienced arts professional, but all that changed in 1995, when Jim Edgar handed the directorship to Lori Montana, his chief fund-raiser. Montana had little experience in arts administration, and after two years she left the IAC to become director of the state lottery. Even Davis admits, “Jim Edgar did begin to make this job more of a political appointment.” She came to the IAC with an 11-year track record as vice president for public affairs at Field’s, but her contacts with Montana and former first lady Brenda Edgar may have helped her win the job. Irene Antoniou, chairman of the IAC advisory board, is quick to praise Davis’s performance as director, and according to Davis, the average grant awarded by the IAC increased by a whopping 50 percent this year. But sources both inside and outside the council claim that staff morale was plummeting while Davis spent more than a year devising a new strategic plan.
Shortly after Davis arrived at the IAC, Antoniou told her the council needed a new strategic plan. To help formulate the plan Davis organized focus groups, mailed out surveys, conducted endless meetings with arts groups and IAC staffers, and contracted Arts Market, a consulting group based in Bozeman, Montana, for $13,500. But when the new plan was finally approved last April, some staffers found it remarkably similar to the old one. It called for the council to develop arts programming in the state’s more remote regions. But it also recycled standard operating procedure like working closely with park districts to develop and fund programs. Says the same staffer: “We’ve always worked with the park districts.”
But according to Mike Boyce in the mayor’s office of license & liquor control, the Black Orchid hasn’t even applied for a liquor license. Once it does, city law stipulates a waiting period of no less than 45 days, and the process will probably take much longer. Jim Hirsch, executive director of the Old Town School, said the school applied for a liquor license in July and only got it a couple of weeks ago:
