A notice was posted on the State of South Carolina’s official press release site on Aug. 4, 2009 of an upcoming Board meeting at the SC Arts Commission in Columbia, SC. Well, it’s sort of a meeting – a one hour meeting via conference call.
The notice stated that: “Interested parties can attend the meeting at the S.C. Arts Commission, located at 1800 Gervais Street, Columbia.”
Sounds like an event not to be missed.
Makes me wonder what kind of event this is – a one hour meeting by conference call – what kind of work could they get done that way? – in one hour? Of course this could be one of those new fancy conference calls with video terminals so everyone can actually see each other and materials presented by the staff of the Arts Commission, but in these cost cutting days it’s hard to see how that is more cost effective than these people just driving to Columbia. But then that may call for a lunch and travel expenses for the Commission members. It’s probably just a lot of voices in the room. But I wonder how they know it’s really a Commissioner on the line? It could be me in that room.
I guess a one hour conference call is an easy way to rubber-stamp some new policies the staff worked up. At least that’s the way one board member described their duties to me – “we just yay or nay what the staff proposes”.
Who needs to travel to Columbia in this heat to do that?
Of course you have to ask yourself – what difference does it make anyway? Some artists and art groups in the State seem to be happy with the way things are going and the others – well they just don’t care – the Arts Commission never had an impact on their lives anyway so what’s the difference what they do? They don’t know what it would be like to have a state agency that really offered help – so they don’t know what they are missing. Too bad.
I mean it – it’s really too bad.