Empathy, the Arts and Community Building
T
his past weekend I spent some time with a good friend of mine in south
Windsor. This is a regular occurance, as our children grew up together and
would consider themselves “BFF”’s. Needless to say, they actively encourage our visits and tend to prolong them as much as humanly possible.
We spend the vast majority of our time together doing two things; playing
music and talking. Doug has a full band setup in his basement and the
accompanying recording gear, so we sometimes end up with some interesting piece of our artistic expressions at the end of the evening. The other pursuit normally brings me a little closer to understanding how our society interacts, which is something that I am extremely interested in.
You see, Doug is a psychologist and an Associate Professor of Psychology at
a university in Detroit. Besides our musical inclinations, Doug and I also
have a lot in common when it comes to world views and the importance of the
notion of “community”, which is often what our conversations come around to.
So, Saturday evening, after a few pints of lager, we came to the conclusion
that one of the biggest hurdles we, as a community, have to overcome is our
growing lack of empathy toward, and sense of connection with, our fellow
Windsorites. Doug seemed to have an awareness of this already, but he led me to understand it on my own terms which is probably why I enjoy our coversations so much.
We see evidence of the disconnection we have from one another all around us. As Doug pointed out, it has been long argued that modernism, especially as manifest in industrialism but also still expressed in our economic policies and practices in the present day, has resulted in a severing of our connection to the world and to each other. We have come to define who and what we are in highly individualistic terms. By association, and heavily influenced by cultural values as expressed in the media and social institutions, we have come to place greater priority on our own well-being and quality of life than on the well-being of our neighbour or community. Because we don’t feel connected to our fellow Windsorites, we don’t feel the need to consider their well-being before making a decision about our own.
As psychological science has been discovering, people seem to have a need to feel connected to something outside of themselves. It seems to be something that is hardwired into us; our sense of meaning and purpose in life and our overall well-being is markedly higher when we have a felt connection with something bigger than ourselves and it doesn’t seem to matter too much what that bigger thing is- it could be a sports team on which you are a member, a political party, or a religious deity. A felt sense of connection to all of these things appears to be beneficial. Conversely, absence of such feelings of connection are linked to problems deriving meaning and with generally poorer quality of life. Given this, it should be no surprise then that the rates of mental illness associated with lack of meaning in life (such as depression) and capacity to empathize (such as psychopathy and pervasive developmental disorders) have been on the rise for the past several years. Obviously, we need to find ways of reconnecting people. Fostering a strong sense of local community seems to hold promise of doing this. But how do you convince people that their own personal happiness and well-being can be improved by giving greater attention to the well-being of their community (and consequently surrendering some of their self-interest for the interest of everyone)? This appears to be the main challenge facing those of us who want to effect a transformation in how we live among each other and in relation to the environment. I myself believe that dialogue is a necessary first step. Engage members of your community in meaningful discussion about what it means to live well in the community and you are moving in the right direction. This is one of my primary purposes in participating in ScaleDown and maintaining this blog.
Taking what I’ve said so far and applying it to municipal politics, when we see our elected officials speak from their positions of power at city hall behaving in a manner which threatens to dismantle a viable and important community, it sort of shakes us into knowing that something is very wrong, and recovery from our seemingly intractable disconnection from each other will entail much more work than we had previously thought.
A city’s arts community is a concrete manifestation of the empathy and awareness of the human condition experienced by the artists. Artistic investment allows our society to understand each other through the works of area artists, regardless of their artistic mediums. Putting all the evidence aside of the revitalizing qualities of a healthy arts and culture scene, the amount of support we lend to our arts community is directly proportional to the level of empathy we have to one another and the level of community involvement we collectively hold dear. That is, arts help to nurture a sense of connection.
So when Ward 5 councillor Jo Anne Gignac proclaims that “the free ride is over“, and mayor Eddie Francis continues to add strings to the city arts committments, it clearly shows that our municipal government does not understand what we need to not only build a healthy vibrant city, but reverse the trends and build a stronger caring community.
We are attempting to rebuild a ravaged community while tearing away at the very foundation we need for community. Until we stop this attack and refocus on the qualities that make us strong, we are doomed to failure.
Tags: artist, arts funding, budget repercussions, community building, relocalization, revitalization
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There has always been a disconnect in this city between the artists and arts organizations and most of the general population. I say most because there has always been a small cadre of well educated, well meaning people through the generations that believe in the arts, believe in the artists, believing and lovingly so, that this city is more than just a lunch bucket factory border own.
These artists, whether visual, musical, dramatic or light opera or writers, are stalwart in their belief in what they do, they are true survivalists for living in this city, for believing that this city is more than an assembly line, sports and beer.
But they are a band of few against the many, They have survive the years of lack of funding or even a decent wage for what they make, they survived against the odds of generations of city councils that basically ignored them but only use them for photo-ops!
So, this city must have more than one meaning for them to live and work here. It is them we have to ask, not threaten with greater control, because what they do well, is better than what this city has done of late, if ever!
Artcite was born out of the frustration that the art gallery that Ken Saltmarche built didn’t and wouldn’t include local artists in it. And I know the fight well for our local artists to gain city and national interests. Art in the Park was founded to throw the local artists a bone for a yearly juried show, so they would stop bugging Saltmarche, who wouldn’t let them in.
Then came Common Ground and Printmakers Forum, all started by individuals and groups, all without city help or care! Yet today they are known nationally and internationally with no help from the city or the vast uncaring majority of citizens. Yet they thrive! Frugally of course with the little pittance they get from the city. Not like the jocks in this town with a new 65 million arena only accessible by car.
Our professional and amateurs artists have added more value to this city over a century, than the once big three ever did, and who is remaining these days? WITHOUT DIRECTION AND CONTROL FROM THIS CITY!
Who will carry on, not the factory workers because they and their children are moving out faster than it takes for acrylic paint to dry. Who will write or paint our story, not the factory workers, not city council. It takes great faith, a good education, talent, more hard work, a great investment financially and without subsidization, than what you are paid for to make art.
Most, if not all artists in this city don’t make what a fat city councilor makes, yet the city feels the need to dictate to them, that they aren’t acting responsible, or without transperancy when they do receive a small pittance from the city. They should be ashamed to ask for more! How dare they! But if they were the police or fireman, well that is a whole different story, even if most are absent from their jobs.
And yet Councilor Budget formley known as Dave Brister, grinned with delight that “HE” was asked by the WSO to perform in the playing of Peter and the Wolf…what a hypocrisy that was!
And it is a hypocrisy that this city now approaches these enduring arts groups and wants to dictate to them, that they, the arts groups don’t know better how to operate and the city can do a better job in doing it. They have survived a hundred years, without huge industrial grants, with pittance from the various arts authority councils, and on bingos! Now the city knows better! I don’t think so.
Now the city wants them to save this city! To make it a community when they are already a community. The city will only eventually destroy this also, as they have destroyed this city.
It’s a shame, they deserve a lot better than this from this council and specifically the mayor.
“The Free Ride Is Over!” - yeah unless you are a for profit business like the Spitfires.
Then we’ll dump $65 million into a new playground for you too…
Think how far $65,000,000 would go to support the local arts, library and museums. Methinks it would eliminate a lot of the budget crunch those groups feel. Never mind the fact that this mayor and council don’t seem to have any qualms supporting “cultural” events across the river…
Like committing $$$ support to the Detroit Grand Prix for the next FIVE YEARS!?!?!?!?!
No 5 year committment. Only got the press center for 1 year
“The free ride is over!” Huh! What free ride, no artist, musician or writer makes what a sitting councilor makes annually in this city and they work darn hard for it, are better educated, have more of an entrenpeneurial spirit than the free loaders at council. The Spitfires and jocks are getting a free ride, lunch and limo service! And they are only 19 year old boys who wanna be pro someday. What a dorky investment in one minor aspect of this city, while the rest of the city is disenfranchised! Huh..disembowled more like it.!
Who is Gignac, and what planet did she come from! More people in this city attend culture events in the city and county, than will ever attend an event at the new arena.
You want to talk about empathy and disconnect, the above quote spewed by Gignac, says it all for the majority of Windsorites who care less about the arts! You keep forgetting that only 27% of this city is literate and grossly culturally illerate. This city and its education institutions have failed the people of Windsor miserably over the last hundred years!
There could be PLENTY of money for the arts community if only our council and mayor were to PRIORITIZE their spending habits!
How much money has been spent on lawyers and consultants?
How much money has been spent on various plans that are only shelved and collect dust?
How much money was/is spent on events not located in Windsor?
$35,000/yr goes to lamb-chop meals for council.
As stated there is plenty of money for the arts community but this city doesn’t want to spend it on that.
It is really sad when Ms. Gignac states such nonsense. Doesn’t she realize, as did Ms. Veruth during the council budget meeting, that the arts are a quality of life issue and not really sustainable? But then again when does Windsor do anything for it’s citizens in the quality of life department? Has your quality of life improved with this council?
The fact is the arts can build new businesses (new jobs), cement creative neighbourhoods, promote tourism…why do they want to spend money on that? I am hoping to change some mind at city hall! Are you?
To address the main point of your posting Chris, for myself personally, I am not disconnected from this society, just the opposite, we are very much involved in giving our time to this community, in what we do best. For reasons I won’t divulge what it is I and others do but we are well appreciated in the little (we think) we do do. It was they my friends that kept me in this city, when I wanted to leave and it has been and will be a trip! Oh! And we aren’t subsidized by any means, but for the love of what we are doing!
But you are very right, that there is a very large disconnect in our society today, even when a couple are having dinner in an out door restaurant, one or the other is on a cell phone talking, while the other one just sits there, as one small observance of a disconnected society.
The agruments and points presented about a viable living arts organization can do for a city have been over reported for forty years, the figures don’t change, the numbers don’t change, just the year and date. More people in North America attend an art gallery or some other cultural event than all the sports leagues combined in attendance or watching on television but the arts always get it in the neck, and nothing but lip service from mayors and councils. We are asking for enlightenment and all we are getting is lights out!
Education in the arts, is primary in understanding them and appreciating them but our education systems fails miserably at that and so does our city. To know an art form, any art form, be it a symphony, a painting, a poem takes work and intelligence by the artist and by the listener and viewer. This disconnect today is that hardly anybody listens to a full length symphony, they sample bits of it on their 15,000 song iPod but don’t understand the whole story being told. Most of the population couldn’t sit through a full length symphony today.
Art isn’t elitist, but it demands intelligence though, and psychologically and socially all artists are connected to their communities in time and place and produce what they experience in that community, it might not be forthright to the viewer or listener but it is there, it does connect. It just that so many in our society have never had any educatiion in the arts, let alone any amount of formal education.
Dave, did you mean Ms Mary Baruth, she knows the numbers and studies, the cultural manager for the city, whatever that is! I think that she might be inline to become Windsor’s cultural czar, if the city takes over control of all the art, cultural and heritage organizations, dictating what they can do, what books if any the library can purchase without her approval, or produce,or music that they play because they are getting a shit load of money from the city and are irresponsible low lifes and spendthrifts! Damn artists, flakey wierdos! Why don’t they get a decent job on the line and shut up! AND quit pulling city hall’s strings!
The only time Mary Baruth shows up for anything is if there is a camera or photographer around. This would indicate “city council support.” I guess that is when the mayor tells her it is okay to go, ust like when she goes to Trillium grant award events that organizations have worked hard to write because they cannot survuve on the breadcrumbs Council offers. Yes lets remember it is the grant writing and mostly federal and provincial funding that keep the local arts groups alive and this is why they do not beg for outside help.
I have never seen Councilor Gignac attend an opening at Artcite, The Bookfest or the Windsor Film Theatre, nor Mr. Brister, so I find it interesting that they know when it is time to start cutting back the most.
It is also very interesting that Councilor Marra has publicly announced that the city council has to wrest control and David Brister has decided that the library is nefariously spending money, but the library itself has garnered over $40,000 in federal adult literacy this grants and given up staff office space and storage space for the tutoring classes to move into. They have also relinquished staff space for Settlement workers acquiring grants this way and given up an entire meeting room for an Ontario Early Years Centre in the Basement. Oh but they are just wasteful…Hmmm wouldnt want them buying up to date software or books!
The awards won in the past years have been based on the professionalism of the staff hired and that was when there was a full complement but then again Mary Baruth would probably remember those days with a full budget since she used to work at the library then. The library is working on a budget 10 years behind funding according to recent reports, what are we to expect from them Council?
What are we to expect from a city council that funds sports but not arts.
Oh but wait i guess you cannot brown bag it but all of the artists living on welfare can. Don’t forget to add all of the tasty treats you get at Board meetings.
I find it interesting though that most arts boards are voluntary but the politically based ones garner a salary hmmm.
Which art truly has value? Writing, painting, film? Well according to Windsor Star even the Internationally respected Media City Festival gets nothing but 2 paragraphs today though it received 20 minutes on NPR.
Hey Eddie maybe you can share some of those sad stories of how you used to deliver pita out of the back of your Dad’s car back in the day. Your writing has improved in Star lately…
Urbanrat, you are correct it is Ms. Baruth. I had the two women mixed up.
This is a great story of the new library in Seattle;
Libraries as ‘urban hangouts’
By David Brewster
Slate’s architecture critic, Witold Rybczynski, has just put up a fascinating slide show essay on downtown libraries, including Seattle’s. To read the essay is to sense all the strain as architects try to redefine large library spaces for an Internet Age.
http://www.crosscut.com/blog/architecture-design/12142/Libraries+as+urban+hangouts/
The slide show is also worth viewing. But it will only happen with us!
You’ve got to love Craig Pearson…
Sports vs. arts
City Council’s recent budget posturing shows a disturbing anti-culture flair.
Dealing with an extremely tight city budget is tough, of course, especially since councillors kept the 2008 tax increase to less than one per cent — effectively a tax decrease given it doesn’t match inflation.
But how and why councillors got there is telling.
Some councillors have admitted the obvious, that our elected officials did not have the appetite to implement much of a rate hike after the tax hit the fan in 2007 over citizens’ water bills.
Councillors pumped up our water rates last year like a geyser, by a whopping 86 per cent, which you can imagine angered a few people.
So councillors, concerned about citizens wishes and re-election chances, went ultra tight on this year’s budget — holding increases to an average of $30 per rate payer — which sounds great on paper. Though it looks a little less palatable close up.
Originally, council demanded that all departments cut their budgets by 10 per cent.
For most departments, however, that tough-as-nails order fell off the table pretty quickly, for a variety of reasons, including union contracts which stipulate such things as three per cent raises this year. But councillors kept snapping the whip at arts and library funding.
Until the last minute, councillors demanded the 10 per cent cut to culture — a harder line than with most other areas, reflecting an ongoing trend in recent years.
At the 11th hour, council relented and reduced the library cut from $790,000 to $400,000, and held the arts to last year’s funding.
But it came with some stern words.
Joanne Gignac, who to be fair is not necessarily more anti-arts than other councillors, summed up council’s sentiment. She said financial constraints make it increasingly difficult to support the arts, so, “The free ride has got to stop.”
Her opinion seems to hold true true for a number of our city’s brain trust, including Mayor Eddie Francis.
Funding the arts, in their opinion, gives artists a free ride.
But the question is, how does arts funding differ from any municipal funding? If you’re going to look at it that way, the whole $400 million budget is a free ride.
What about sports? Recreation? City beautification? Business grants? Tourism?
You want to talk about questionable spending? Consider the millions of dollars Windsor spends on outside lawyers to fight a myriad of things to the bitter end — such as former owners and tenants of the expropriated Norwich Block — even if the cost of the battle amounts to more than the original bill.
Case in point: the Capitol Theatre.
Any bets on how much the total legal fees will be to fight for ownership of the Capitol? Now compare that to the $65,000 loan council originally promised the Capitol board but then reneged on.
For the record, the city already has an in-house legal department of seven lawyers.
But the biggest single indication of council’s priorities is sports.
Mayor Francis goes out of his way to attach the city to major sporting events in Detroit, for which the city pays. Such participation with Motown is great, a true Windsor bonus, even if a lot of people don’t much care for sports.
The king of all sacred cows, meanwhile, is the new WFCU Centre, which will cost $65 million. What a wonderful home the Spits will have. Windsor is lucky to have such a shrine of excitement.
But if council really wanted to spread the wealth around, perhaps they could have built a $55 million arena — which no doubt would still have been spectacular, and a major improvement over The Barn.
Then they could have taken the $10 million savings, created a trust fund, and covered the costs of the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Windsor Symphony, and the Capitol Theatre in perpetuity.
Everything in a municipality costs: having good parks and recreation programs, attracting tourism, promoting business, and yes, providing arts and culture.
That’s why I commend council for having the vision to improve the city, with high-profile sports events and state-of-the-art sport facilities.
But many aspects of human endeavor deserve similar commitment.
By all means, keep an eye on wasteful spending. Make arts and other groups account for every dollar.
Never forget, however, that improving all aspects of society helps a community.
If you think only arts and culture are getting a free ride, then you’re just dressing up ideology. And hurting the community as a result.
Excellent. I too scratch my head at the ‘free ride’ comment after the Spitfires - a private organization - got a new home paid largely by ratepayers, while the libraries and arts groups get nothing and/or face cutbacks. Our priorities are so messed up it isn’t even funny.
Stalinist arts and culture programs come to the city!
There never has been real empathy for the arts in this city. The arts groups/socities have always been a small band of the few against the majority of this city and that will always be the case. They will make their art regardless of the total environment they live in! They are that independent, that creative, and that head strong and unlike the mayor and council, very intelligent, in that they believe in what they’re doing is right for them and NOBOBY else, including this mayor and council and this city!
They aren’t easily intimidated, even from the out bursts of the mayor and Gignac et al. Matter of factley, the cities angry vicious outbursts directed to them as ungrateful spendthrifts and the actions of the city wanting to control their money and spending, smacks more of a reminder of a Communist regime than a democracy in which the arts are thriving.
But the hypocrisy in this, is that these arts groups, outside of the library, get most of their funding from the federal and provincial governments, from fundraisers and bingos, than they do from the city! Will that money dry up because the city is involved now in controlling them! Will the city replace that funding and increase that funding to the scale of the new arena as they did for a few privilege boys, who mostly aren’t from Windsor, to play hockey, then go somewhere else to be famous! If that is the case, that arena money could have better use in assisting the university in locating downtown and keeping those very nerdy, but very creative future engineers in this city AND THE ARTS as Craig Pearson pointed out in his blog!
The city wants total control of their finances, does that mean that the city, read the mayor and one lonely cultural manager will become the sole dictators of what culture and heritage is in this city, and what can be produced and NOT produced for the glory of Windsor..ahem! I mean the mayor and one sole cultural manager,,aren’t they getting enough photo-ops these days! As are Duncan and Pupatello are when the Trillium grants are handed out.
The mayor along with the new department of Culture and Heritage, that one, the on the citizens told in a loud clear voice they didn’t want or will pay for, is now being rammed down the throats of this city. Another communist bureaucracy dictating to the citizens and artists what is culture and what is heritage and what is good for them, because they know what is best for this city and it rides on the likes and dislikes of one cultural commissar dictating what is good for the city, much like the actions of a certain labour union and a city councilor in this town.
I can imagine that there will a city official in every artist’s studio, or standing in the wings while the WSO plays, that fifty year old track homes will be designated as a heritage homes. That poets and writers will have to submit their work for approval to the city, before being allowed to published or get their paychecks!
This is what is really being said by the mayor and council and the Windsor Star.
The arts are doing just fine thank you, yes the funding could be better, and that has always been the wish. They fight and compete for every dollar they are given and are thankful for it. Do you think that those hockey boys really care where the money comes from, I doubt it, their career won’t be in this city!
The river and the land don’t sustain us. The river is polluted, the land has disappeared under a new arena, big box stores and even more urban sprawl and more freebooting roads and parking lots to get there from nowhere! That is Windsor’s culture!
Now, the Windsor Public Library. For almost a century, the library has been delivering a service bar none to the citizens of this city, more than this current city council can say for itself! They have under due diligence provided Windsorites with the best material available, for their education, for personal learning and recreation and access to the world beyond the borders of Windsor and continue to so, even under the circumstances of ten years or more of hostile underfunding from the city. Because the library is doing what the city isn’t and that is delivering more services for the dollar than the city cares to omit or can! And has been accumulating this city’s cultural and historical history, quietly and without pretensions but what is good about this city. The truth about this city and what was and is, lies in the index cards and scrapbooks that have been lovingly collected for us! Now the mayor/council/cultural manager want to destroy this and grab control of who has access to this!
It is a power grab by the department of Culture and Heritage, as I stated above to control what the people of Windsor can read and what they can or can not access, another smack of communist rule by the city.
What is happening is much like the television program that I watched on the HIstory Channel last night.It was program showing how Hitler and Speers tried to build a Nazi grand dream through heroic architecture and art..as they saw it. Both are dead now, and not much remains of that dictated dream of glory! Hint!
If the city continues on this course of action towards the arts, the artists will shrug they’re shoulders, give the “flip” to the city and move somewhere else or go underground or just don’t care what the city thinks! Artists have survive many a regime and they will continue to do so! Regimes come, regimes go but art is constant by its nature and love for humankind!
Am I angry! Yes! This hostility has been going on for most of my life time in this city and nothing has changed, except now for the blatant attack by this city to dictate what is art and what isn’t art, who can produce it and can’t and on and on and on…
As a service to the arts community, I have sent the Windsor Star editorial and council minutes and quotes and links to the blogs to other arts groups across this great land and let them decide for themselves what to think of Windsor as a art friendly community! Free branding! And it was done oh so cheaply!
This city isn’t building bridges in this case and by their actions are destroying what if any empathy the arts had for this city.
At that budget meeting I was shocked when Ms. Gignac stated her “the free ride is over”. I spoke quite loudly in the crowd that the “free ride” for the Spits aren’t over even with $65 million injected into them.
The issue isn’t money..it is the priority of the spending of the money. With gross labout costs to this city, with an abundance of an ever growing law department, with departments with large overhead (many numerous manager’s) why does the city go after the arts? Because it is an easy target that most people don’t care about yet fill an important niche in any city regardless of whether you like art or not.
As for the library. Yes they could have cut more. Perhaps the head of teh library could take a small pay cut considering he makes over $100,000+ a year. He hired an assistant from Oakville (who still lived(s) in Oakville but commutes to Windsor) at about $100,000/yr and he wanted his tuition paid for so he could finish law school! Sorry but not on my dime! It was disgusting enough when Eddie lured St. Clair College downtown so that CITY EMPLOYEES could go to St. Clair College for lower tuition than the rest of the peons (ratepayers). As if city workers are paid too low NOT to be able to afford going to college. Give me a break!
With Audits being done that have shown positive results at the Library, why does the taxpayer need to take on the burden of another audit? What are you trying to prove Mr. Francis? However you refuse to audit the WUC at a 60% increase to the taxpayer. What do you have against the educated or those who want to simply read, or assist those who need book, educational materials or public access to Information?
Oh I see that must be it. It is the access to inforation that must grind your axe. Your “witch-hunt” as Mr Nelman has eloquently put it has forced the library to work with 2 managers to run 10 libraries, Have 3 I.T. personnel to fix all of the computers in the system. 1 person to handle upgrades of the catalogue. There are only 14 librarians to staff all ten libraries which means some libraries only have two staff members at a time. Clerks who work the desk and process materials are seriously reduced so if the public want to know why service might take longer well that’s because there is only one delivery guy for the whole library.
You see the library has not hired anyone new full-time in a while to replace those who have quit or retired, and while it might look like the library is just full of cash they are working on a 1996 Budget.
Perhaps we may wish to asak ourselves where the money came from to support a private organization such as the Spitfires and give them the “free ride” of 65 million dollars but Council has no problem cutting services to an organization the prevents crime, improves literacy and employment.
The library will take the cuts as you suggested Dave and even the CEO but first ask the fireman and police who make over $100,000 in salary and overtime to come to work first!
For the last time Dave: Salmons was the CEO of the library when he was sucunded to the city to become a super manager under Perlin, in charge of the library, parks and rec, and culture and heritage, an executive director was hired and yes from Oakville to run the library and report to Salmons. When that re-org collapsed in dismal failure, Salmons returned to the library, summarilly fired the executive director who then returned to Oakville. Case closed. I guess she had enough brains, not to move to Windsor full time. This executive director’s husband is,was way up in the Ontario government at that time and is one reason that she communted.
There are a lot of managers etc attending the university of Windsor or St.Clair college that work for the city, taking degrees, with the city paying for their tuition, just not Salmons.
Urbanrat, I agree that the police and fire budget should be scrutinized as well but the police budget is subject to the province.
I am also in agreeance that many of these managers hsouldn’t be getting a free ride at either the UofW or St. Clair College especially on the taxpayers dime. However, I believe that they could offset some of the tuition costs if it is for continuing education for the betterment of their position and thus a betterment to the city. I have yet ot see what benefits our city has while they ride the tuition gravy train.
By the way this is the first time I have heard of these changes with regards to Mr. Salmon and what happened so I am not sure why you stated “for the last time”.
Dave,
Steve Salmons left WPL over 4 years ago. Brian Bell was placed as Interim CEO. It was only in the last year that he was made permanant Ceo. Jean Foster is Director and took over when Edith Hopkins left (who was a the former Director under Steve Salmons and also a Librarian which is usually the case in for a Director at a major public library).
This is why UrbanRat probably brought up the term “for the last time” because Salmons left 4 years back.