I was very happy to see some coverage here about the CAC that isn't just a regurgitation of the Jay Weigel's own self-serving talking points. To anybody who believes that he "saved" the CAC post-Katrina, I'm afraid that's a very delusional point of view. By early 2006, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in relief funds from numerous charities just poured into the CAC, and it would have been unthinkable that it would have closed. Jay did what he needed to do, but he did not reduce his salary, and his reliance on a very tight circle of cronies was necessary to keep control over the organization.

The absolute minimum that should be demanded by the New Orleans visual arts community is that the search be a national one, and that a museum professional be appointed, rather than another local musician. The fact that Jay Weigel never went to an art exhibition during his entire tenure at CAC's helm speaks volumes about how he saw the organization fundamentally as his own private pork barrel, and all patronage was in the form of personal favors from him. The additional fact that he hired a completely inexperienced glorified intern to run the Visual Arts program until a month ago also proves that he doesn't care at all about the visual artists in New Orleans.

I found it very illuminating that 2 of the 3 things Jay took credit for were fundamentally connected to Prospect.1. CAC would never have renovated those upper floors in a millions years if P.1 hadn't brought $400,000 in underwriting contractor costs to the table. That he & Ms. Mackie also sought to sabotage Prospect.2 is still a subject that needs to be addressed.

My hope is that those who clamored for a change actually involve themselves in the CAC instead of just complaining because the CAC doesn't meet their personal agendas. Should they get involved they might realize that 1) the CAC is not a visual arts institution but rather is a multi-disciplinary arts institution; 2) that the building is the building is both a blessing (great venue) and a curse (too large for the mission and extremely expensive to maintain); 3) that the enormity of the economic realities of the national economy, the state cutbacks in arts funding, the ongoing battle with the FEMA bureaucracy to make the CAC whole from the damages to the building that the CAC had to fund has made it absolutely necessary to figure out how to monetize the extra space in the building in order to continue to operate and support the arts; 4)that the CAC survived Katrina was due to Jay Weigel's stewardship; 5) that the CAC has been, is, and always will be an institution open to anyone who is willing to get involved; and 6) that the operation of this very special and unique institution is complex and there are no simple solutions that are available short of a major, major donation that will eliminate the need to find the right balance between programming needs and financial realities.

The simple solution offered by many of the uninvolved and uniformed is to change directors. Ok fine that's happening. So for all that believe that Jay's resignation is somehow going to change the economy, the fact that we live in a poor city, that creative ways to monetize the buildings extra space will no longer be needed, or that arts programming is not going to be impacted by the difficulties in raising funding, I sure hope you're right because we are losing one of the best representatives and spokepersons of and for the arts, all of the arts, that this city has known.

"...isn't necessarily the result of pressure from the local arts community"?? Of COURSE it is. We've been writing letters, lobbying members of the Board, going over CAC tax returns, and interviewing past staff members for specific incidents of mismanagement (some would say malfeasance). Now we have to keep up the pressure to remove Jay's second-in-command (hopefully more than that) and make sure qualified replacements are found ASAP - NOT in a year's time!