By Bobbi Bowman, The McLean Ear
MCLEAN, VA – A committee of the McLean Community Center board met behind closed doors Tuesday night to discuss their decades-long partnership with the McLean Project for the Arts whose gallery and studio are located in the Community Center.
MPA runs the Center’s Visual Arts program and pays a yearly fee of about $20,000 for 2000 square feet of space, under their 21-year-old agreement.
“We’ve had a very long and very positive relationship with them for over a decade,” said Community Center chair David Sanders. “Some of our board members are interested in seeing how we can periodically review that relationship and make it the most that it can be.” He added, “I don’t contemplate us making any changes now.”
Asked why the committee met behind closed doors, Sanders said, “It involves another party potentially negotiating with the board. . . It’s foolish to negotiate in public.”
Why we care: McLean residents elect the 11-member board. Six board seats are up for election Saturday at McLean Day. The board controls $17.4 million, much of it from our tax dollars. McLean residents pay a separate property tax to finance the community center, which the board oversees.
Taxpayers need to know when their publicly elected officials responsible for our tax money transact the public’s business behind closed doors.
Board members attending last night’s shuttered meeting: Sanders, Kevin Dent, Lee DiCenso, Risa Sanders, Ed Shahin.
Dent is the only incumbent up for reelection in Saturday’s board election. DiCenso formerly served on both the MPA and MCC boards. Sanders said she recently resigned from the MPA board. At the end of March, the MCC board narrowly approved a conflict of interest policy that prohibited board members from discussing issues in which they had an interest. DiCenso could not be reached for comment.
“I was surprised to hear that they decided to talk about our management agreement in closed session,” said Nancy Perry, executive director of the McLean Project for the Arts.
“We value our relationship with the McLean Community Center. We are thrilled to be in partnership with them to provide the visual arts program for the community and we look forward to many more years of continuing that relationship,” she said.
The MCC board’s action came on the eve of MPA’s annual spring fund-raiser. Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell is the guest of honor at tonight’s benefit at a home in McLean with 300-400 guests.
Background: The MPA founded in 1962 runs McLean’s public art gallery, gives classes and teaches school children art appreciation.
Annual budget: $500,000 a year which comes from the annual benefit, tuition from the art classes, and federal and state grants.
1989 – The Community Center and the Project for the Arts signed a partnership agreement. MPA paid the Community Center $300,000 for its 2000 square feet of space then another $700,000 to make improvements and build the art studio, Perry said.
MPA pays the center one-third of its gross tuition revenues —about $20,000 a year.
The Community Center board voted narrowly in October to give the MPA $8,000 to help cover ArtFest expenses, a decision questioned by some MCC board members since it was essentially a donation of taxpayer dollars to a private nonprofit group, that needed funds. MCC member Sean Dunn requested the donation saying that MPA had lost some of its expected funding.
The McLean Ear 