Three members of the Hamden Arts Commission resigned and several more spoke out in protest at a Nov. 20 Legislative Council meeting after the removal of commission vice chair Diane Brown in mid-November drew cries of mismanagement directed at local officials.
Brown, who has served on the commission for the past two years, was formally notified on Nov. 13 that she would not be reappointed.
Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett cited geographic requirements on commision makeup imposed by Hamden’s revised town charter adopted in 2022.
“Because her term had expired and she was from a district that already had so many other commissioners from that same district, I could not reappoint her to the arts commission,” Garrett said.
The charter strongly recommends that commissions contain just one member from each of the town’s nine voting districts and sets a hard limit of two members per district. After the redistricting that followed the 2020 census, there were five arts commission members from district seven, where Brown lives.
But the email sent to Brown on Nov. 13 cites the charter’s political composition clause as the reason for her nonappointment.
“What it says to me is, ‘oops, oh we have 11 Democrats on the Arts Commission, we can only have 10. We have to remove one, let’s remove Diane,’” commission chair Shon Howard said.
Brown said she feels her removal was purposeful following disagreements with town director of arts, culture, recreation and wellness Karen Bivens.
Brown claimed that Garrett did not approach Howard and ask for her input before choosing to remove her over other members from district seven.
“That’s typically how commissions go, but you’ve got two people (from district seven) who never really attended meetings, and then you’ve got me serving as (Howard’s) vice chair — truth be told, me and her did all the work — so now, it’s setting her up to fail be she feels like, ‘Diane, they removed you, you were my strongarm, we worked together as a team”’ Brown said. “So they know exactly what they’re doing.”
Brown received a letter in May from Town Clerk Karimah Mickens-Webber asking if she would renew her term as an arts commissioner. After this notification, Brown said the arts commission started having internal disagreements with Bivens.
“I explained to the mayor that there were times when I felt like Karen (Bivens) was unprofessional in her behavior,” Brown said, citing a lack of communication between herself and Bivens.
HQNN has reached out to Bivens for comment and has not yet received a response.
Brown further claimed that Bivens failed to involve the arts commission in the planning of the SilverBells Celebration, the town’s annual holiday festival which will be held on Dec. 9.
Five members of the commission spoke during the public comment period of the Nov. 20 meeting to oppose Brown’s departure.
“Diane is arguably the most influential person in Hamden when it comes to arts and programming,” Howard said. “Who really got hurt by this is the community. Which is who I thought we all were here for.”
Howard, along with commission treasurer Charlotte Lefland and Siobhan Carter-David threatened to resign in response to the situation. They also cited communication difficulties with the mayor and Bivens.
“It has become evident that the town’s priorities no longer align with the values that commission was founded upon,” Lefland said.
When the meeting went into recess following the public comments portion, members of the legislative council asked Howard, Lefland and Carter-David to reconsider their resignations. They agreed to do so — at least temporarily — until Dec. 6, when two members of the legislative council will attend the arts commission’s meeting to “hear the concerns from the entire arts commission.
“We’re giving them an opportunity to come to the table and hopefully we can resolve these issues or come to a compromise,” Howard said. “And based off how the meeting goes, I guess will determine how we move forward.”
The arts commission oversees much of Hamden’s programming for “activities in the arts,” including the annual Summer Concert Series and Silverbells Holiday Festival. Communication issues in organizing both were brought up at the meeting.
“Many of the arts commissioners feel that we are being silenced in the hope that we will fade into obscurity,” Howard said.