Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne nominated Leonard DiCosimo and Gina Vernaci and reappointed Karolyn Isenhart to serve on the five-member board of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) for the term 4/01/2024 through 3/31/2027. The County Council will confirm his nominations before the next CAC meeting in April.
“These new leaders have a passion for the arts and a strong commitment to enriching the community, which perfectly aligns with the mission of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture,” said Ronayne in a press release. “They possess the essential qualities necessary for cultivating a dynamic cultural landscape throughout our region.”
CoolCleveland contacted the list of applicants who applied to serve on the CAC board of directors, which was published in the CAN Journal in January. Most applicants never received an interview or were never contacted about their application, while some did not respond to the CoolCleveland request.
“I never received any response,” said artist Robert Wright. “It is a farce to request applications. I thought I would at least get a response saying, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’.”
“I was not interviewed. I am not even sure they contacted me about my application at all,” said artist Michael Loderstedt, Professor Emeritus of Kent State University who also served as interim director of the School of Art. “I’m not sure if I know anything about the new candidates. I imagine they are not artists.”
John Farina, a collector of regional art and co-owner with Adam Tully of Maria Neil Art Project in the Waterloo Arts District and an arts advocate with a political background, was not surprised.
“I was confident that Karolyn would be reappointed. I am sure they did not even bother reviewing other applications,” said Farina. “Gina was probably on a short list they had already decided upon. The application process was just for show.”
Kisha Nicole Foster and Darcie Polo applied, but neither received any information about their applications.
“I thought they wanted real, on-the-ground artists, but they do not want people like us,” said Foster, recipient of the 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize for Emerging Artist in Literature. “They want people to make them look good, not working artists. That is sad.”
Vernaci will replace Nancy Mendez, who will step down as the board chair after the April 17 CAC Board meeting. DiCosimo will replace board member Charna Sherman.
“We express our sincere appreciation to the departing members of the Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board, Charna Sherman, and departing Board Chair Nancy Mendez,” said Ronayne in his press release. “They have brought unwavering commitment, innovation, and a forward-thinking approach to the board.”
Mendez is stepping down amid controversy during the past year for reallocating more than $400,000 from individual artist grants, plus an additional $100,000, according to outgoing board member Sherman, and folding the money into the CAC general fund in 2018 and 2019. In a public meeting last December, Mendez apologized to the community on behalf of herself and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Executive Director Jill Paulsen for confusion about the purpose and challenges of CAC and later admitted that Paulsen and the board had deliberately not paid grants to individual artists. The total amount withheld from individual artists is over $1.2 million.
Paulsen maintains no wrongdoing in diverting individual artist grants to the general fund and has not directly addressed a scathing report issued by ISO Arts Consulting, hired by the Assembly for the Arts. The report, funded, in part, by the Gund Foundation, found deep distrust, overriding interpretations of CAC programmatic and funding choices, and damaged community relations through deception, lying, and manipulation.
In a press release by CAC, Mendez said that she was proud of what the agency accomplished in recent years and urged the arts community to “use their passion to bring people together and help CAC continue its important work.”
Ronayne said Mendez will serve the county in another capacity that he will announce later but did not offer any details.
In announcing his two nominations and reappointment, the county executive failed to mention that neither Vernaci nor Isenhart have much or any practical experience as artists. The Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3381, Arts and Cultural Affairs, approved by voters in 2004 and renewed in 2015, as the basis for creating CAC, states that at least two members of the board of trustees “shall be persons who devote a major portion of their time to practicing, performing, or teaching any of the arts.”
DiCosimo, Executive Secretary of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor and President of the Cleveland Federation of Musicians, is a working musician who has performed as an associate artist for the Cleveland Opera on Tour, as a chorister for the Cleveland Opera, the Pittsburgh Opera and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
According to ProPublica, Vernaci, former president and CEO of the Playhouse Square Foundation, was paid the equivalent of $891,858 in the fiscal year ending June 2022, at the end of her 39-year career with the organization. Playhouse Square received the largest CAC grant at $1.2 million, or just under 9% of the total amount for 2023.
Isenhart is the executive director of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party and volunteers as the board chair and president of the Lakewood Arts Festival. She is also an associate auctioneer for Rachel Davis Fine Arts.
Liz Maugans, an artist and community activist working for CAC reform, told CoolCleveland that the candidates Ronayne nominated support his political career over meaningful, constructive improvement at the public agency and show a lack of commitment to the artist community.
“Chris Ronayne, a seasoned politician, leveraged his career first, which is reflected in his recommendations for the CAC board,” said Maugans. “Gina Vernaci is a retired administrator, not an artist. Karolyn Isenhart’s primary job is president of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, always a convenient relationship for a politician.”
“Ronayne did not follow the revised code when he appointed Daniel Blackmore and reappointed Michele Scott Taylor last year,” she added. “I am not surprised he would do it now, and I remain disappointed in him.”
2 Responses to “Chris Ronayne Appoints Three to Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Board”
Honey BellBey
Trust me, I feel the pain of this article. I am the current sitting….. just trust me I feel the pain of the working artist who have spoken in this article
Liz Maugans
Why even have an Ohio Revised Code if it’s not being followed?
Why have a call for applications for vacant artist seats for Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board (a requirement of the damn code that’s not being followed) if Chris Ronayne doesn’t even have the decency to communicate to the over 30+ working class creatives who applied who do this for their full time job?
These all smell like internal recommendations made from the CAC leadership to Ronayne once again.
Thank you to all the artists and creative workforce professionals that took the time to apply. You are all gifts to this region for being people that could make a change! These artists are likely to never trust this agency and its rigged political processes for the sake of optics ever again! What disrespect and arrogance from this county official using public tax payer dollars.
This is no way to get the arts levy passed in November!