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Thanks for joining us for this program, which is, these are the topics we couldn't get to in the first 30 or so minutes.

Alvin, I want to ask you about some major changes taking place at the Regional Arts Commission.

Vanessa Cooksey, the longtime CEO, is going to step down at the end of the year.

They've decided to make some changes so that the grants will now go to the St.

Louis Foundation, I think, now run by Dr.

Kelvin Adams, and then they'll send them back to the commission that oversees the Regional Arts Commission before they hand out the money.

There's been some recent reports that changes were needed, but I didn't find any of the problems really egregious.

They had a $20,000 trip to Puerto Rico, they hired some executive coaching, and they exceeded by a couple of percentage points that 15% operating cost margin that nonprofits like to keep.

I didn't see anything in there, and I read a couple of stories again and again, trying to find out, okay, where's the big problem?

Well, I agree with you, and also there was some, there was a, I don't know, we'll call it dispute or misunderstanding about what went against, like, operation costs and what wasn't.

So that was one reason that they thought they were within the parameters, but they were not.

I thought, you know, a couple of things, you know, buying somebody a gift on a wedding registry, or someone died and they sponsored something or other, I thought that was, no, you know, I don't think that that's your job to do that at Regional Arts Council.

My fear is now that I think they really did reach out to all sectors of the fine arts community, and it just sounds like when you start going through the St.

Louis, you know, Foundation and these others, it's going to take a turn toward conservatism.

And I don't mean that politically, I just mean, I don't think that what, they looked at everything like everything is possibly art, and that might change.

And I don't think Vanessa Cooksey did a bad job, and I don't think she's the culprit in, I don't think she did anything completely out of line, but at this day and age, I thought this pending was wildly out of control.

And this thing about, you know, when somebody just giving money for funeral gifts and everything, that's not their job, they're supposed to be helping.

I agree with you on that.

We have to have the same attitude about the Regional Arts Commission as we do for SLPS, if it's the Chophouse, sorry, we really do.

And yes, you're right, I do think there is more attention being paid to taxpayer-funded da-da-da than there has been for a while, and so maybe she was just, you know, bringing up the end of the train, if you will, for that mindset.

But to me, if you, coaching and, certainly you can have staff development, that kind of thing, but I don't know why that bothered me.

It's like, you should be fairly fully formed.

Yeah, once you're the CEO of an agency like that?

I don't think sending flowers to the loss of a loved one, if it's an employee.

Oh, no, this is a lot more than that.

A trip to Puerto Rico for the entire staff with taxpayer money.

And your whole job is to give out money, like, focus on giving out the money.

Off-sites are very popular among American corporations.

You don't send the whole staff.

You send a couple of leaders.

Not with taxpayer money.

Not with taxpayer money, perhaps, and maybe that's the big difference here.

I think these changes are good.

If they're getting $8 million a year and the trip was $20,000, that's a small percentage.

I hear you.

No, not to the taxpayers.

$20,000, put it still.

Wait, that's how they react to things like that.

Now, this also came from Jeff City in a whistleblower.

They were more than happy to just cause ruckus in St.

Louis, even if they care about it or not.

I would give this advice to anyone, a little bit late to Vanessa Cooksey.

When you come new to a job, especially if you are a minority person coming new to a job, what went on before you should not go on, just like status quo.

You will not be judged in the same way.

That's not fair, but that's reality.

And then, two, the first thing I would do if I was ever in one of those positions was, how can I cut the budget by 5%?

So the first thing that they see from me was, he cut the budget by 5%.

And that is why the Reed McClellan consultant, which is out there.

I will say, it was recently reported that the former governor, Mike Parson, was using the state jet a lot.

We knew that, though.

Did we know that?

I thought so.

No, no.

There was a fleet of cars.

But the flight to Hawaii.

Right, and I think he flew some of his cattle out that way.

I think that story lasted a whole three hours one afternoon.

Because he was out of office.

I think he managed to keep it under the rug just long enough to ride off into the sunset.

Alvin, I think you make a good point that sometimes we do hold leaders of color to a different standard.

And that's hard, and that's not fair, if that happened to Vanessa Cooksey.

But I think she and everyone at RAC should have been paranoid, knowing the culture in Jeff City.

Not just because she's a black woman.

That was a caveat.

That's on top of things.

They're coming after the arts.

Jefferson City would love to take money away from the arts.

And that's why whoever's running the regional arts commission can't take the whole staff to Puerto Rico.

You don't get to do that when you're in a state like Missouri that wants to only spend money on things like sports and, I don't know, data centers.

It's just stuff that people go, what?

I don't know.

I will say, I walk through hotels, you know, like the Ritz and Clayton.

And I'll see there's always a big event sponsored by corporations and by private enterprise.

And it seems to me if it's considered good management to have big events in private enterprise, why not in the public sector?

That's different, Charlie.

What a corporation does is entirely different than what a local government does.

But what if there are advantages to going to Puerto Rico so that the employees learn skills or they're getting professional development?

I would say that they can learn those skills without the palm trees and the pina coladas in St.

Louis.

Everybody doesn't have to go.

Now, wait.

None of us know what they did in Puerto Rico and what the benefit was.

Now, I'm not saying, I'm not, I'm just saying that we're making it sound like they went down there and just partied for three straight days, which I don't think is true.

Had they gone to Ireland, it would have been approved.

Wendy, I want to ask you about a four-story obstacle course at 270 and Creedcore Mill Road.

It was called RYZE.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Throw the question your way.

So anyway, Wendy, it was spelled funny and it didn't work out.

So what do you think about that?

Well, Charlie, I happen to think that I am still smarting.

It's going out of business.

Explain to the viewers that it's going out of business.

But they're still sort of hoping that maybe.

The fellow who runs it said even though he had the balance beams and he had the obstacle course and he had the zip line and he had an observation deck, St.

Louisians didn't adhere to it because we are not.

We're not adventurous.

That's correct.

Okay.

Are you finished?

Are you?

Yes.

No.

So in much the same way that Stan Kroenke kicked us in the face after he told us he was moving to the west coast with his mistress, the hot young secretary, this guy is blaming us for being no, no, no, just follow the breadcrumbs here.

He's blaming us.

We're just not adventurous enough.

Or, or, Mr.

Rise, you didn't have a very good business plan because nobody had heard of your four story park.

We have grandchildren.

We have children.

If there had been something exciting to go and see, we would go to see it.

He also said that it was an extraordinarily wet spring and hot summer.

That is ridiculous.

That's like saying, you know, the arctic circle is, was extraordinarily cold.

I mean, this is, you know, this is sort of the, that's our reputation.

So if the business plan didn't work, if you didn't publicize, if you didn't advertise, just say, hey, it didn't work.

But don't then kick us and say, well, we're not a very adventurous people.

Well, you know, we, we, we support city museum.

Yes.

And I think that if we support the city museum, you're pretty adventurous.

I will say I have friends come from out of town and we'll take them to the city museum and they're like, how is this legal?

How do they possibly have insurance to keep this place going?

It's like, well, it's St.

Louis.

Everything's crazy here.

Like in a good way.

I think this boring adventure park, you know, I, in my current role at St.

Louis magazine, I am constantly looking for like new attractions that we can write positive pieces about to make people enjoy their time in St.

Louis.

True.

Never once heard from the same with us.

Never heard of it.

I hadn't heard of it.

It was going out of business.

And to him, I would say like, listen, this guy's whole family went to that flim flam Christmas thing out in St.

Charles and O'Fallon got ripped off.

People falling, breaking their legs.

Right.

But we, we checked it out.

Right.

So you can't say people aren't adventurous.

I think just living in St.

Louis by definition makes you pretty adventurous.

Yeah, I would say that.

And I feel like this town has a great appreciation of like bread and circuses.

We're always out in the streets, you know, having a festival, getting drunk.

Like this guy just had the wrong kind of adventurousness.

And I hope people learn from his mistakes.

We're not zip liners.

There are so many zip lines in town.

Hey, we're going to have zip line.

You can come free.

We're going to have free food.

We'd all been lined up around the block.

Who wasn't?

There's cheese in there.

We're out of time.

You adventurous viewers.

If you've been watching this program, you must be adventurous.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We'll see you next week at this time.