Adams Arts Advisory Board Wants to Become Independent
ADAMS, Mass. — The Adams Arts Advisory Board is exploring the possibility of becoming an independent entity from the town, to have more autonomy to pursue organizational goals.
The group, formed in 2015 by the Board of Selectmen, was established to promote more opportunities for creative ventures in town. The decision to become independent, said board members, has nothing to do with them not wanting to work with town government.
"This is not about severing relationship with a town," said Melissa Silverstein. "It's also making it easier for them in terms of administration, not having another group to be like, 'Where's your minutes? Where's this? Where's that?' But it's also about building new relationships with the town, in terms of the cultural district and everything else."
The separation would give the board more autonomy as an organization, allowing it to be economically and administratively independent from the town. Board member George LeMatrie explained that the board did not realize until recently that it was officially incorporated into the town.
"I don't think anybody on the board, the original board or any of the other boards up to this point knew that we had a formal relationship with the town and that we were supposed to abide by the town rules and regulations for a committee under the town administration," he said.
Board member Yina Moore said another problem would be if the board wanted to add more members.
"The board number has to be restricted to five. So if we want to do more, and we needed more help, it is harder to expand," she said. "And then very quickly, we realized that there's limits to what we can do, given that we're all volunteers."
Selectmen Howard Rosenberg and Joseph Nowak were present for the meeting. Rosenberg said he, personally, would be in favor of the change, noting that it would give the board fewer restraints, allowing the members to focus more on what they are passionate about.
"If you remain part of the town as a board, you have to abide by all Massachusetts law; public meetings, minutes, and it would put a big burden on you," he said. "And we would set the budget for you. You could advise us about how much you needed, but at the end of the day, town meeting would have to approve it, and it'd be out of your hands."
The group plans to discuss more with Town Administrator Jay Green to determine the process of separating and gauge whether there is support for the decision among town government.
In other business, Silverstein provided an update on the group's initiative to have downtown Adams designated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as a state-sanctioned cultural district. She said the group is waiting on the state to reopen the process to become a cultural district.
"As of right now, the portal for the state to sign up for cultural district is closed. They're looking at how they are going to do the cultural distance moving forward," she said.
Silverstein said the process can begin to move forward again once the state makes a decision.
"The key for the cultural district is to build community around it. So we have to connect with businesses and other people, build a core committee and then go from there," she said. "But there's not like any forward movement as of right now because we don't have the ability to do that."
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