City Budget Crisis Gutting Dept. of Cultural Affairs

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 16, 2010 3:20PM

WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis has been keeping tabs on the recent layoffs at the Department of Cultural Affairs as it prepares to consolidate with the Mayor's Office of Special Events and declares that Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg has been left with "a shell of a department, and raise questions about whether the city will able to present much-lauded events such as the World Music Festival, SummerDance, and Downtown Sound/New Music Mondays at the level they’ve been offered, if at all, in 2011 and beyond."

20 employees were laid off last Friday, including Michael Orlove, the Cultural Affairs programmer most responsible for World Music Fest, Summerdance, the Downtown Sound series and the other free concerts at Millennium Park that have helped raise Chicago's profile as an international city. DeRogatis also noted that the Mayor's Office of Special Events, headed by Megan McDonald, hasn't felt near the effect of budget cuts and layoffs as the Dept. of Cultural Affairs.

Moreover, many of the responsibilities of the Cultural Affairs Department are being transferred over to the non-profit Chicago Tourism Fund as of Jan. 1, effectively stripping Weisberg of many of her responsibilities and resources as the Cultural Affairs and Special Events Departments set to merge. Under the new chain of command, Weisberg will head the combined department, with McDonald answering to her. But DeRo sounds dubious as to whether that will actually happen.