I will post again soon. I have been very busy getting three rooms in my house ready to rent out in order to make ends meet and keep my beautiful home and garden. I have had to pack up much of my life into boxes and cram my practice space into one small room. Doable, but chaotic.
I am also having to apply for Federal assistance to help pay the high price ($550/month) to continue the insurance plan which has now been dropped by the Symphony, even though several staff member’s salaries and benefits continue to be paid.
I am still sad beyond belief that those in the community who are members of organizations formed to support the Symphony have been convinced by the pseudo-logic of Buzz Trafford’s lawyerly manipulations to believe that there are no other options than what has already been done.
The truth is, the board did not have to withhold ticket sales for the Fall season in order to continue negotiations with the musicians. This simple fact betrays their innocence in handling the situation. They claim they cannot sell ticket because they don’t have a contract with the musicians. In fact, they have a contract, which they have broken. And their efforts to negotiate a fair contract for the current musicians has been anything but fair; it’s been unilateral and immobile. While the musician’s offered a sizeable cut to BEGIN negotiations, the board, led by Buzz Trafford, refused to budge from their original plan. This is not negotiation.
One supporter, who is one of the most circumspect and polite individuals I’ve ever met, spoke up at a recent meeting and stated that, after reviewing the events of the past few months, and as uncomfortable as it was for him to say; the Board intended to destroy the orchestra all along.
Motives are moot at this point. The fact is, our livelihoods and our valuable contribution to Columbus as music makers, teachers, neighbors, friends, is ending. And that end has come to pass solely on the backs of the decision makers on our current Board of Trustees. They are responsible for the destruction of the orchestra, not the failing economy, not the “lack of support” from corporate donors, not any reasons they give. It’s simply their original intention to destroy the Orchestra, masked behind a “financial crisis”. This is not to say there is not a financial crisis. Any musician would agree that there is. But the desired outcome to resolve that crisis is vastly different from the Board’s view than the musicians, or any other of the numerous, educated supporters of the Orchestra.
We need new leadership, plain and simple. Those on the board who are willing to take a fresh look at the situation and actually support the orchestra should remain. The others, who have either been involved in the plan to destroy the orchestra, or who have in complicit in their silence, should step aside.
I also want to mention to any of you reading my posts that you should be aware of any unusually long page loads, especially if the note at the bottom of the screen says “downloading from sum4count.net”, which is a Trojan malware script that piggy backed onto my blog. I have taken all the necessary steps to prevent any further infiltration, but just in case you saw that phrase, you also need to take steps to clean your computer of this virus. I apologize if this has caused any problems for anyone. I can assure you, it won’t happen again. (Luckily I have a Mac and it was relatively unscathed, but my laptop PC has been destroyed and must be completely rebuilt)
