Council puts Civic Theatre on notice
The clock is officially ticking on the Rochester Civic Theatre.
Wednesday night, the City Council approved recommendations from the Outside Agency Oversight Committee, giving the Civic Theatre 30 days to become compliant with their lease with the city — or else, the lease will be terminated. In that time, the city also intends to create a plan for a “collaborative performing arts model,” which would go into effect at the theater after its current season ends in May.
The council approved the motion in a 6-1 vote — Council Member Keane was the lone nay vote — after over an hour of spirited discussion and multiple attempts to amend the original recommendations presented by the oversight committee.
During discussion, Rochester City Attorney Jason Loos confirmed the Civic Theatre was in violation of seven separate terms of their lease with the city. This contradicted a letter to the City Council sent on Monday from current RCT board president Jeff Haynes. In part, the letter said the Civic Theatre was not in violation of any lease terms.
“The Civic Theatre is a tenant in good standing who has met the obligations of the lease agreement consistently since 2009 and is not in default,” the letter reads. “On what grounds does the City break this lease?”
Council Member Michael Wojcik, who also sits on the oversight committee, disagreed with Haynes’s assessment. He called the materials presented by the theater claiming they are not in violation of their lease “patently false.”
Council Member Nick Campion, the chairman of the oversight committee, “reluctantly” supported the measures. He said he saw the recommendations as “very detrimental” to the organization, yet a necessary step to prevent future situations like this from happening.
“I think if we simply turn away from repeated financial morasses,” said Campion, “just because the board has turned over or the executive director has left, we’ll never hold an organization accountable.”
Wednesday’s meeting was just the latest installment in what has become a show of its own at the Civic. The oversight committee’s findings, as we reported, were released earlier this month, showing hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans (some coming from board members — a direct conflict of interest), failures to make payroll, and the city’s demand to get a portion of its annual subsidy back from the theatre. (As of today, RCT has paid $150,000 of said subsidy back to the city.)
Related: In-depth coverage on the Civic Theatre is in ep. 4 of our podcast.
The decisions came in conjunction with a noteworthy change to the Civic’s board; 2019 Board President Kay Hocker is no longer listed as a member of the Civic’s board at all. This follows the oversight committee’s findings, where the committee lists Hocker’s performance in the role as “poor” and “needing significant improvements.” Hocker declined to comment for this story.
Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.
