“The Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) has a strong, passionate, and capable team of professionals who have dedicated their lives to RACC’s mission: To enrich our communities through arts and culture. This good work continues to support our community of artists. RACC continues to provide its services to the Portland metro area with careful financial management.
To that end, the RACC board of directors has placed executive director Carol Tatch on temporary paid administrative leave while the board exercises its due diligence and oversees an independent investigation. This step is taken out of an abundance of caution to continue to demonstrate RACC’s integrity in overseeing taxpayer dollars provided by the City of Portland, Metro, and Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties. Since this is an internal personnel matter, and the board respects privacy, we cannot share further information at this time.
RACC maintains the City’s decision to cut arts program funding after this fiscal year is a mistake that hurts all Portland area residents, by removing control of arts funding decisions from the community and placing those decisions back into the hands of government officials. The Portland community spoke almost three decades ago: Arts funding decisions belong with the community, not the government.”
– Debby Garman, Interim Board Chairperson, RACC
