Fairfield 1st Fridays Art Walk Executive Director Jeananne Robins submitted her resignation Monday, citing conflict with the event’s exectuive board of directors. Robins said the board undermined her ability to perform her roles as the director of the Art Walk. She likened the situation to too many head chefs in a kitchen. “It’s not fair to the city and the art walk to hire and executive director and have her only do the job of an executive assistant,” Robins said.
“The Art Walk board of directors has accepted the resignation of Jeananne and wishes her well in her future endeavors. Her leaving is unfortunate yet was inevitable,” said a statement from Terry Baker, president of the board. “The board is considering its options and formulating a plan that ensures the continuity and success of the Art Walk. I am very confident in the Art Walk board. They are a dedicated team and have been committed to working toward the Art Walk’s continued success for many years now,” added Baker.
Robins, who was hired in August, is the third Art Walk director since Cathy Wadsworth was hired as the event’s first professional director in August 2007. Funding for Wadsworth’s position came from a matching Iowa Community Culture Grant given by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. Amy Kettenburg and JoBeth Lewer also filled the Art Walk position prior to Robins’ hiring last August.
by Phyllis Khare
During the current fiscal year, the position was funded by $35,000 from Fairfield’s Local Options Sales Tax community betterment fund — that money also went to advertising and event expenses. Prior to 2007, the event was run entirely by volunteers — a circumstance that Robins believes has contributed to the present state.
“The past board of directors had to act as executive directors. It’s been hard for them to reverse that level of service, ” Robins said. Her issues are with the few members of the executive board, who have individually countered her authority while serving on various committees. Robins acknowledged the board’s authority over her when acting as a single entity. As the Art Walk’s executive director, Robins also felt she was kept out of the loop on too many details. She cited and upcoming Art Walk that has been almost entirely organized by a board member as an example.
“This is not a club. We need to sustain ourselves, The way to do that is to implement systems and run the event like a business,” Robins said.
“I don’t know what the solution is at this point. I love the Art Walk, ” she said, “I just want to see the Art Walk survive, and I don’t think it can the way it is run right now.”
Baker was confident the Art Walk board would handle the matter and ensure the event’s future success. “As many of you can imagine, running an event every month of the year requires special skills and stanima, and I am very proud of this board for its flexibiulity and focus towerd the Art Walk’s continutity,” said Baker.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e91508bf-953c-411c-8edd-687ab9d0ee7b)
I didn't even realize the art walk had a paid director now. While this does seem like a setback, from a larger perspective, it's amazing how far the event has come.
So while this isn't really a "good news" story, maybe it would be appropriate nonetheless for us to reflect on what the Art Walk has become, and to send a big "thank you" out to Stacey Hurlin for the gift she gave Fairfield almost eight years ago.
well – jeananne also didn't have to do an interview with the paper…those quotes didn't come out of thin air…resignations are announced all the time and often we're left to wonder what the real story is…she's probably just too upset to say nothing.
The art walk is a public funded organization and so any issues surrounding how those funds are spent deserve some transparency. The art walk has grown over the years and it’s natural for their to be some degree of growing pains – and it sounds like we’re seeing some here.
I'm pretty sure Malloy is shaking like a crack baby over these headlines, he really hates this type of thing.
"Growing pains" is exactly my take on the situation. It's a natural evolution of any organization that succeeds over time, and I'm guessing both Jeananne and Terry have valid points and perspectives.
The trick is now for the board to learn from Jeananne's resignation, and the series of Executive Directors before her, and re-align the organization for further progress and success.
I'm sad to hear that she has resigned, though not a shock… I had warned her before she accepted the position that it was a burn out job, hopefully changes will be made… hey what about having the board members rotate as Executive Assistant… Errr Excecutive Director, na bad idea because in a few months there wouldn't be board members left, all would have quit… Jeananne you will be missed, you did a great job.
I can't figure out if it's a good or bad news story.
I contacted the Art Walk director for more information but have not heard back yet.
Good news or bad…It just made me feel bad for Jeananne. How humiliating to have all of your work place drama spelled out in the newspaper! I don't understand why this had to even be made public? Couldn't her resignation have been announced without all the details being published for public scrutiny?
Public scrutiny goes along with the territory of working for a publicly funded entity. If you don't want your workplace public, you stay in the private sector.
I understand a well-intentioned "whistle-blower" called the Ledger and then the Ledger called Jeananne. The "real story" is that this remarkable event is going through some growing pains. There are good people donating hundreds of hours on that Board of Directors. I'm confident that everything will all be worked out. Jeananne said it best:
“The past board of directors had to act as executive directors. It’s been hard for them to reverse that level of service, ”
To me that spells out that everyone wants Art Walk to thrive. Perhaps this all happened to nudge organizational things along, in which case the whistle-blower gets their wish, I assume.
And I just have to comment on something appearing below this comment: Not only do I find the term "shaking like a crack baby" more than mildly offensive, but it hardly applies to Mayor Malloy, one of the most dynamic, inclusive civic leaders any community can have, let alone our wee village.
My apologies to all crack babies, I shouldn't have compared them to ed. Based upon your eval his public image is holding.