Amazing Weekend at the Senator!

Wow. I had a little too much fun at the Senator this weekend, which is maybe why I couldn’t get a blog post together yesterday. I want to thank Tom Kiefaber, Sean Brescia of Clearpath Management, Gayle and the rest of the staff at the Senator, and of course all the wonderful musicians and local businesses who volunteered their talents and services to make the Senator Sessions a great success! Thank you for a wonderful, exciting weekend. Best time I’ve had since I moved to Baltimore, and I am thrilled to know such talent is in the area!

The emerging shared vision of the Senator as a premiere multi-use arts and entertainment facility has now been successfully demonstrated as an evolving reality. This weekend was the icing on a cake that was baked over the past few weeks during other events like the inauguration, the Super Bowl, the Mind Field premiere, as well as showings of some of the finest current Hollywood movies.

The question remains whether, without community input, the city’s steering committee is sharing this vision, or even has a plan at all.

I want to echo David Arquette’s warning in his recent blog post about the Senator: there is indeed a danger of this cherished local resource falling into the wrong hands. This is not necessarily because anything malicious is happening. It’s just that the city does not have a good track record for planning of community spaces, as I think many of my neighbors who remember all the struggles over the Belvedere Square redevelopment project can attest.

Right now, it’s unclear whether the city has a plan for the Senator, and I understand from a conversation with a steering committee member that nobody on the steering committee has any experience in running a theater. My guess is that the city stepped in to try to help in what everyone agrees is an emergency situation, but they’re unprepared to help.

Unfortunately, they so far have not heeded what was the real request that came out of the emergency town hall at the Senator in January --- we asked them to come to the table with local community and business association leaders, community members, and Tom Kiefaber to discuss openly what can be done to put the Senator into the hands of a community-owned non-profit and transition it in a seamless way that will keep the doors open. So far, the city is having their own little private meetings and has not come to the table with all of us.

As for Tom Kiefaber, he knows just as well as Dan Rodricks at the Sun does that this is not about him. The Senator is bigger and more important than one man, and everyone knows that. I think Tom knows he has to give it up and let other people run the place, but let’s face it --- so far this is his life’s work. He’s been saving the Senator for over 20 years. Of course he doesn’t want to just let it go unless there’s a plan in place for it to be going in the right direction and safely in the hands of the community that loves it. Anyone who has done work they cared about deeply must understand that. It’s only natural.

The public also may not understand that the city really isn’t offering anything directly to Tom Kiefaber in their bid to acquire the Senator. The $320K figure they’ve floated would only pay off a small, currently unsecured portion of a much larger debt of more than $900K. It would be going straight to the bank, none of it into Tom’s pocket. He and his family are going to be in dire financial straits even if they take this deal. This is what I’m able to glean from the public record. Since the loan is secured by their home as collateral, it may in fact be a matter of taking the deal or losing their home (the fact that their home is currently collateral was reported in the Sun). More public money seems unlikely to be the solution, but from a standpoint of human compassion, I really have to say I hate to think that the family that made such huge personal sacrifices to keep the Senator open for the past 20 years is going to continue to suffer as a consequence. That part of this really breaks my heart.

I also want to just express a plea for not only keeping the doors open, but also keeping the staff of the Senator employed. There are a lot of good people there who stand to lose their jobs in this horrendous economy.

So, there’s a lot of positive stuff that can come out of this, as the wonderful weekend of fun just demonstrated. There’s also some bad consequences that could happen if we’re not careful. I want to see a solution that serves the highest good for the entire community, and keeps the Senator open as the multi-purpose arts and entertainment venue it needs to be.

Please enjoy my amateur videos of the events.

Friday Night Baltimore Revue:



Saturday Acoustic Love Songs:



Sunday Left Bank Jazz Revisited:



Sunday Night Psychedelic Show:

Senator Theatre – Possible Buyout

There’s a report from the Baltimore Messenger that the City of Baltimore has offered to buy the Senator Theatre by buying out Tom Kiefaber’s debt. I am strongly in favor of saving the Senator and having it remain open as a community-owned nonprofit, however, I have some thoughts and concerns about the City’s offer, as reported.

The biggest concern I have is that the Senator needs to remain open during the transition. A closure would surely result in losses to nearby businesses, as well as causing a depressed look in the area, which might drive people away and encourage crime. Psychologically, that is just not the message to send to the community and visitors to the area. Tom Kiefaber has a Photoshopped image of what the Senator might look like if closed. It was on display in the lobby recently, showing a very decrepit appearance. It’s something I don’t want to see in real life. (I tried to find that image on the internet, but couldn't find a link, so if anyone has it, let me know.)

I spent some time thinking about other historic buildings and theaters I’ve been aware of that closed and then had to struggle to reopen, and my recollections are not pretty. I think if the City does not have a plan in place for what to do with the Senator, so that it can remain open during the transition, it is likely to close for at least a year or two, not some shorter period.

My second biggest concern is that the report about the City’s buyout plan says that a steering committee would have to determine whether the Senator can be sustainable as a nonprofit. Well, who is going to be appointed to this steering committee? Will it be members of the community who are fully committed to finding a way for the Senator’s operations to become self-supporting? Or will it be some sort of bureaucrats who don’t really care if the answer they come up with is “No, it won’t work?” It seems to me that whether or not a solution is found is very closely tied to how determined the steering committee members are to finding one. For that reason alone, it’s imperative that the steering committee include members of local resident and business groups from the immediate neighborhood.

If the Senator is going to remain open daily, there need to be movies playing there, which means someone who knows how to run a movie theatre needs to be involved. There’s no way there will be special events every day, and the theatre needs to be open regularly to continue to provide the attraction to visitors that it currently does provide.

I’m a little disturbed by some of the attitudes I see posted in comments on the Messenger article. I never understand why some people think that because one problem isn’t solved, it means government shouldn’t spend money on solving other problems, or why some people think no money should ever be spent on the arts. What we’re talking about here isn’t a huge amount of money when it comes to government budgets, and putting it toward solving other problems, such as the crime in Baltimore, wouldn’t solve those problems. And for people who think government should never spend money on the arts, I’d really like to know what they think their lives would be like with no music, no movies, no TV, no books, no visual arts. Pretty boring, I would think.

Anyway, in my opinion the amount of money the City is talking about spending is not huge in terms of their budget and if done right, it could help keep the Govanstowne/Belvedere Square neighborhood vital during this difficult time. It would also help preserve and enhance the attractiveness of Baltimore as an arts-oriented community.

I also realize I’m relatively new to Baltimore, but I don’t get the attitudes a few people and some in the media seem to have toward Mr. Kiefaber. I think he's a nice guy who has been successful in keeping the Senator running for the past 20 years in the face of rather staggering odds. Yes, he has sometimes appealed to the community for help, but you know, for those of us who think the Senator is an important part of Baltimore, that shouldn’t be a problem. He also appears to be a very community-oriented businessman, very respectful of the neighbors and nearby businesses. I’ve seen plenty of business people who are just out to make a buck, so I have to say I prefer the community-oriented kind. If Kiefaber were just out to make a buck, he’d have ditched the Senator long ago, but he’s trying to preserve something he thinks is worth preserving. And hey, if you don’t agree, at least don’t be mean. That’s the way I see it, anyway.