What will messy breakup between arts group, city mean for Tacoma’s Theater District?
It’s a very public breakup, and it’s getting ugly.
On Wednesday, tensions that have long simmered burst into full view when Tacoma Arts Live executive director David Fischer published a strongly worded letter to the community and patrons. In the letter, Fischer revealed that the nonprofit he runs — which has a 42-year history of managing Tacoma’s city-owned theaters, including the Pantages and the Rialto — has declined to participate in a recent request for proposals issued by city staff to establish a new contract for day-to-day operations of the venues.
Tacoma Arts Live, Fischer wrote, has “lost all trust with City staff.”
In short, it means that the local nonprofit’s tenure running the theaters soon will come to an unceremonious end. For the first time since the renovated and restored Roxy Theater opened its doors as the Pantages in 1983, a new company will take on the tasks of selling tickets, filling the calendar with performances and acting as a steward for the historic facility, along with the Rialto and Theater on the Square. In recent years, it’s a contract that has cost the city roughly $1 million annually, and one Tacoma Arts Live last competed for and won in 2005.
All of this might seem inconsequential, particularly since Tacoma Arts Live — which was known for many years as the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts — won’t disappear. According to Fischer, the nonprofit will produce some shows at the theaters and the Tacoma Armory. The big difference, he said, is that Tacoma Arts Live will no longer be responsible for managing the city’s portfolio of historic venues downtown. Some other entity will be.
But for any Tacoma resident who cares about the arts — and, more specifically, the sizable role Tacoma Arts Live has played over the years in the revitalization of the city’s historic Theater District — the news hits like a ton of bricks.
“All of it,” former Mayor Bill Baarsma said when asked how much credit Tacoma Arts Live deserves for the Theater District we know today, noting that it helped to raise more than $30 million dollars over the years from donors for upkeep and extensive renovations.
“All of it.”
It’s an exaggeration, of course, but it’s not that far from the truth, which is why the Tacoma performing arts sea change now barreling toward us is worth paying close attention to.
Tacoma Arts Live hasn’t just booked shows; it has served as a community-led facilitator of dramatic downtown transformation.
Now, all that history and work is at risk of being coldly shoved to the wayside.
‘We’re done with that staff’
Like any breakup, a review of the squabbles, bruised egos and power struggles that led up to the split between the city and Tacoma Arts Live doesn’t make either party look guilt-free, and such an exercise wouldn’t be terribly helpful anyway. Both entities likely share some of the blame for a relationship that has now, apparently, been fractured.
At the same time, the dynamics of this particular relationship make one thing clear:
The city held almost all the power, and with that comes the responsibility to find a way to preserve a long-standing partnership that has meant so much to so many, even if it’s difficult or humbling.
The fact that it’s come to this is a gut punch, and it didn’t have to be this way.
“We’re done with that staff,” Fischer told The News Tribune on Wednesday, after detailing a list of grievances with the city that dates back at least four years, including accusations that Tacoma Arts Live staff has been intentionally locked out of its offices and claims that the city has “required all parties participating in the RFP to sign a non-disclosure agreement,” both of which the city strongly denies. Another point of contention — whether Tacoma Arts Live would be classified as a resident arts organization, ensuring preferred rates for booking shows — was ironed out, but only after City Council intervention, Fischer said.
It’s the tip of the tumultuous iceberg, and why untangling what has transpired to this point can only take us so far. Over nearly a dozen separate conversations this week, Fischer, city staff, elected officials and leaders of Tacoma’s resident arts organizations all provided varying accounts of the turmoil, while offering speculation about what might have led to it.
According to Kim Bedier, Tacoma’s director of venues and events, the decision to put the contract out for bid when the city’s agreement with Tacoma Arts Live recently expired was hers. She described it as a standard “best practice,” designed to make sure the city is being a good steward of tax dollars on a “big contract” and “getting the most bang for its buck.”
Bedier said the city’s RFP — which was officially issued in April and ultimately resulted in three proposals being considered, including one from ASM Global — was never designed to exclude Tacoma Arts Live. To the contrary, Bedier said the city was surprised and disappointed by the nonprofit’s decision and caught off guard by Fischer’s public criticism.
In recent months, Bedier said the city has tried to make it work with Tacoma Arts Live, including extending invitations for mediation meetings that she says were rebuffed.
Bedier, candidly, said she’s at a loss to explain how things went so sour.
“It’s a really good question,” Bedier said.
‘It’s not a power grab’
Fischer sees things differently.
He described the language of the RFP as a final straw for the nonprofit and its board of directors.
Dating back to at least 2017, Fischer said, city staff — including Bedier and City Manager Elizabeth Pauli — have acted “aggressively” towards his organization at times, and unresponsive at others. They’re moves he views as an attempt to limit the city’s financial risk while securing more power.
According to Fischer, Tacoma Art Live’s averse response to the way the RFP was written — including provisions that expressed the city’s desire to establish a capital improvement fund which the winning bidder would be committed to contributing to — was really the culmination of a festering struggle that the nonprofit simply had no interest in continuing. To submit a proposal would have meant promising to drastically change the way Tacoma Arts Live has always done business during previous contracts, he believes, which is something he and his board had no interest in pursuing.
“Ultimately, Tacoma Arts Live has been bewildered by city staff decisions and wary of their intentions. The result has been a years-long erosion of trust,” Fischer said.
“Despite all of this, Tacoma Arts Live’s board and staff had formally agreed to submit on the RFP … until it was published,” he continued. “Then, the terms of the new RFP demanded such significant change in practice as to upend our business model.”
When asked whether the city was trying to save money with the move, Bedier offered an unequivocal “no.”
“We’re not looking to save money, and we have no intention of decreasing the budget,” including the $500,000 a year the city puts toward capital improvements, she told The News Tribune.
Bedier also said she wasn’t attempting to strong-arm the nonprofit.
“It’s not a power grab,” Bedier said, arguing that the language of the RFP — which was developed with the assistance of a Washington-based consulting firm — isn’t as strict and binding as Fischer suggests.
“We built the RFP to be intentionally non-prescriptive … because we wanted to get the broadest response,” Bedier said, describing the terms of the RFP as “industry standards” that were designed to garner varying responses, not concrete directions or ultimatums.
Bedier also was baffled by Fischer’s public contention that the city required participants to sign non-disclosure agreements.
The seven members of the selection advisory committee the city established to help vet and weigh the proposals did sign an agreement limiting what they could say publicly during the RFP process, but that is a standard practice for the city, Bedier contended.
Asked about the claim, which was included in his letter to the public, Fischer told The News Tribune that “a committee review person twice shared NDA requirement” with him. He declined to further elaborate.
According to Chuck Blankenship, a senior buyer in the city’s purchasing department, similar selection advisory commission provisions have been included in previous RFPs, including one related to providing insurance for city employees.
“I do believe this is a standard procedure when there are several (applicants) ... for a city contract,” said Erin Ceragioli, artistic director of Tacoma City Ballet, who sits on the RFP selection advisory committee. “I had absolutely no problem with agreeing.”
“Whether or not this is the NDA that Mr. Fischer was alluding to, I have no idea,” Ceragioli said.
Mending the relationship
Unfortunately, all of this — and in particular the public airing of alleged slights and apparent miscommunications — leaves us essentially where we started.
In the coming weeks and months, the city plans to identify a successful respondent to the RFP and ultimately put a new theater management contract — with a different vendor, likely with no direct ties to Tacoma — up for City Council consideration.
Asked this week whether there’s any chance the city will reconsider its stance and start over, in hopes of soothing hurt feelings and persuading Tacoma Arts Live to submit a proposal, at-large Council member Kristina Walker said she believes “that ship has sailed.”
At best, according to Walker and Mayor Victoria Woodards, all we can hope for now is that a longstanding relationship ultimately can be repaired.
It’s a partnership that has significantly improved Tacoma over the years, and one that has resulted in increased access to a diverse array of cultural and artistic offerings for residents, they said.
That’s worth fighting for, they believe.
Woodards described the situation like a marriage on the rocks, but one she believes can ultimately be salvaged.
“My hope will be that as we mend this relationship, that maybe we will even strengthen our relationship and bring it back to where Tacoma Arts Live knows the value that they have and knows that we appreciate everything they do for the community,” Woodards said.
That’s the outcome all of us should be hoping for.
Equally true?
The first step toward healing will require the city to lead the way.
Correction: A previous version of this column indicated that Tacoma Arts Live owns the Tacoma Armory. The Armory is still owned by Fred Roberson.
This story was originally published June 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
