The Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission met on April 22, 2024, to address ongoing challenges including public notice issues, budget constraints, and leadership instability. The meeting featured public comment, approval of minutes, presentations on public art projects, committee reports, and a contentious discussion on the status of Executive Director Daniel Singh, culminating in a vote to place him on administrative leave and begin a search for an interim director.
Order at 1205. Like to welcome everyone here. Thank you all for being here. We are in a different location today, so I'm happy everyone found it and was able to be here on time. And we look forward to hearing from the people who we have in our audience. We do have a good agenda today. So we do have several things discussed and some items to vote on. And so we're gonna go ahead and get started because I do want to respect people's times. Do we have um a land acknowledgement or no? If we don't, that's perfectly fine. Okay, let's do our land acknowledgement that we do. Metro Art stands and holds space on the unceded and sovereign lands of the Cherokee East, UT and Shawnee peoples who have stewarded for generations. Every community owes his existence and vitality to generations from around the world who contributed their energy to making the history that led to this moment. Some were brought here against their will, some were drawn to leave their distant homes in the hope of a better life, and some have lived on this land for more than generations that can be counted. We acknowledge we are all standing on ancestral lands, and we honor the thousands of enslaved African peoples whose lives were physically and spiritually stolen. We pay respects to elders, past and present. Metro Arts invites you to join in our commitment to knowing our native communities in more meaningful ways in alignment with our restorative arts practice. All right, now we will move on to our public comment. As always, just know that the public is encouraged and invited to attend commission meetings and may seek and may make comments in person during the designated time on the agenda. Um, as a reminder, the public comment period is limited to 20 minutes total. Comments are limited to two minutes per person. Persons wishing to provide comment on matters that are domained to items on the agenda must sign up prior to the beginning of the meeting on the sign-up sheet provided at the meeting. The opportunity to provide public comment is open on a first come, first served basis. At all meetings, the commissioner chairing the proceedings shall have the authority to manage limit the number of persons allowed to speak on any issue and to manage or limit such speakers' time. And so uh Vivian, do we have anyone on the list today? Yes, we have nine people. Okay, if you can call the first one up. So if we want to go ahead and get started, um, our first up is councilwoman Joyce Stiles. And can you make sure the mics and stuff, the other mic is on the thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you very much, Chair, for acknowledging me. Commissioners for your service. Um, in addition to being a councilwoman, I'm also the chair of our soon-to-be Arts Parks Libraries and Entertainment Committee. So some of you have probably read today's article in the Nashville banner in regards to uh the meeting on Monday. So I just wanted to give a little context and share how we got here. Before I read the email that I originally sent on Monday, I've spent a lot of time fighting for Metro Arts, for commissioners, for artists to be sure that we do the right thing as council members, making sure that Metro does the right thing. We voted last year to give an additional two million dollars specifically to this department because you've been underfunded for over 20 years, and you all have been making it work, but it's not right. So, with that, for me, everything that I do is about making sure we are being good to constituents and we're being good to artists. And with that in mind, on Monday morning, I received a phone call from a constituent to tell me at 7 a.m. they had gotten an alert from the Metro IT system saying that to Monday's meeting for the grants committee was happening at 12:30. It concerned them that they got their alert late. I thought it was concerning as well because we're trying to rebuild trust right now. We are trying to get people that haven't been paid to believe in us and trust that we're going to do the right thing moving forward. And the right thing moving forward is if we are giving the appearance of impropriety, we fix it. So I did ask, I will finish. Um I did ask that the commissioner the who is chair of the grants committee. I did give Mr. Jester a call and ask if he would cancel the meeting. If it will not cancel but reschedule so that constituents felt better about timing. We did discover in this process there's an IT malfunction.