The Elgin Poet Laureate Program explained!

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. – Hanlon’s Razor

I have to admit I came within millimeters of trampling all over my favorite quote (above) in an effort to uncover what promised to be a vast malfeasance on the part of certain Elgin city staffers and commission members. But as is always the case, it eventually comes down to the kind of vast dysfunction and incompetence that too often defines municipal government.

So, when Elgin Cultural Arts Commission (ECAC) liaison, Amanda Harris, and ECAC chairman, Erin Rehberg, refused to provide the names of the Elgin Poet Laureate Project (EPLP) leadership, I figured they had to be hiding something big. But in the end, they were simply obfuscating their role in unleashing the kind of chain reaction disaster you’d expect to see at a rookie NASCAR race.

Ah! But thanks to Elgin Corporation Council Bill Cogley, who swiftly intervened to get me the emails I was seeking, I know exactly who the EPLP is. Though “was” is the far better word here, because, for all intents and purposes, that group no longer exists. They disappeared in the kind dysfunctional puff of smoke that would make the Ward family jealous.

That, of course, also explains why the ECAC cut their funding at the end of last year. Though I’m sure it’s been done, it’s generally bad form to give grants to a phantom organization.

After a great deal of consideration, even though you could FOIA them yourselves, I won’t mention any of those EPLP names because I’m convinced that serving as a non-paid member of that strange gaggle was punishment enough. Not only was there no real nefariousness involved, but a couple of EPLP members became so disillusioned with the process, they actually encouraged Harris and the City to cut them loose. They even warned Harris and the ECAC that poet laureate Gareth Mann was the kind of loose cannon that could seriously embarrass the City.

That said, I have no problem explaining the EPLP’s semi-amusing defective dynamic.

Those festivities start with the group’s de facto treasurer “losing” $2,500 of the grant money they’d received from the ECAC. And by “losing” I don’t mean he gambled it away at the Grand Victoria or dropped the check on the way to the bank. No! I mean he put it in an account and couldn’t find it. Apparently that incompetence was not uncommon for this individual who was even worse with another local organization’s accounting.

The email paragraph to Harris that applies reads thusly:

[The EPLP treasurer] dodged a bullet. I don’t have words for his lack of responsibility and communication, just unbelievable. He put another group with a ton of money with him in a great deal of distress. We were very close to calling the state’s attorney.

It went downhill from there.

In another email, two EPLP members told Harris that had Mann managed to collect complaints from the first three events she appeared as poet laureate. To go three-for-three in that initial regard requires some real skill, too! The problem is, those individuals neither informed the other EPLP members, nor did they call Mann on the carpet over those complaints.

The email continued:

We are really not interested in continuing to support an effort that so few [EPLP members] have an interest in.

and

[We] can’t comfortably advocate for continuing ECAC support beyond the current term with ends in December 2023.

and

[We] want to make it clear that this is our shared opinion. We haven’t discussed this with the other 2 Project members or Gareth. And they are not aware that there were complaints from the three groups who invited Gareth to speak. If you feel we should try to hold a meeting with the group to discuss accepting the remaining $2,500, I will.

Of course, that meeting never took place and everybody walked away from the Project leaving Mann utterly unsupervised. And it was that vacuum that led to her single-handed destruction of Elgin’s Memorial Day Bluff City Cemetery ceremony.

While the EPLP bears a great deal of responsibility for that nightmare because they couldn’t rise above the least bit of petty drama, the bulk of the blame lies with Amanda Harris and ECAC chairman Erin Rehberg. They were clearly aware that Mann, who represents the City whenever she speaks at an event, was left to her own devices. But instead of taking the bull by the horns and getting the ECAC to put an end to this debacle before the EPLP evaporated, Harris applied that traditional Elgin city hall “If I ignore it, it will go away” strategy that flows right on down from City Manager Rick Kozal.

What Harris and Rehberg should’ve done is PUBLICLY end their association with the EPLP and brought Mann in to explain that, as a result of her bad behavior, she was no longer poet laureate, she’d receive no further stipends, and she no longer represented the City of Elgin. Then the Memorial Day disaster wouldn’t have happened.

That’s why neither Harris nor Rehberg wanted to give me the EPLP names. Considering Mann’s Memorial Day debacle, this has become quite the embarrassment for them and the Cultural Arts Commission. So, class,  please repeat after me! “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, drama, and incompetence.” Put more simply, local government conspiracy theories are always wrong.

But wait, there’s more!

Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain likes to say, “Never let the secondary story become bigger than the first,” which is exactly what happened here. But now, because Harris and Rehberg piqued my interest in the ECAC, there’s a tertiary tale that will likely outshine both of the previous iterations.

You see, the Cultural Arts Commission consists primarily of individuals who are heavily involved in the Elgin arts scene. Makes sense, right? Here’s what I mean:

• Marc Thayer is a VP for the Elgin Symphony Orchestra
• Erin Rehberg owns Side Street Studios
• Katrina Syrris is on the board of the Goodly Creatures Theatre
• Mike Rende is on the board of Oddball Arts Labs
• Michael Novelli owns Imago Creative
• Kevin Kearney runs Comics by Kevin

I spoke with four elected officials/former candidates who’d attended a number of ECAC meetings, and they all said the same thing. That clique doles out the bulk of the arts grants to themselves first, with independent artists/groups coming in a distant second place. In fact, those ECAC members have become so bold they actually make fun of grant applications from entities outside their inner circle.

Worse yet, after they give most of the money to each other, they favor artistic friends who don’t even live in Elgin. And instead of calling them out on this insidious form of corruption, city council liaison to the ECAC, Tish Powell, who regularly attends those meetings, simply sits back and smiles.

So, now I’ve FOIA’d all the ECAC grants they’ve bestowed on each other over the course of the last three years, and I’ll happily report back to you. soon. There will likely be a number of new inquiries in that regard, too.

I realize this has been more than a bit of “insider baseball,” as one of my sainted newspaper editors used to call it, but it was fascinating to get to the bottom of it. The Poet Laureate Project imploded, Harris clearly can’t do her job, and the Rehberg led ECAC, which should be immediately disbanded, is worse than Harris and the EPLP put together.

What do you want to bet that, considering the overly vociferous Elgin progressive community, just like a bad end-of-the-movie Bond villain, Gareth Mann will be right back in the thick of things. There was a June 1 email to that effect, too!

Author’s note:

That June first email came from County board member Vern Tepe’s wife, Judi. Vern’s claim to fame is admonishing his fellow board members with, “why are we so afraid of raising taxes?”

In that missive, Ms. Tepe referred to herself as “Gareth’s Communications Chair,” and even after the Memorial Day disaster and the EPLPs bizarre demise, she asked Ms. Harris to meet with her regarding the resurrection of the Poet Laureate Project. Apparently, some people never learn.

I’m telling you this now because I reached out to Ms. Tepe for some sort of explanation for her interesting request, but she failed to respond. So, now you know exactly who’s responsible if the EPLP and Mann manage to rear their ugly heads one more time.

The Tepes truly are a fascinating pair.