The arts center on Albion Street

By MARK SARDELLA

WAKEFIELD — The Albion Cultural Exchange Committee was dissolved last night by the Town Council amid concerns over the management of the ACE Center on Albion Street and fundraising practices employed by the ACE Committee. 

Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio and Town Counsel Thomas Mullen outlined for the Town Council last night some of the issues and steps that precipitated the decision to move to a different form of management for the facility. 

The ACE Center is located at 9 Albion St., in the building that previously housed offices of the Municipal Gas & Light Department. On its web site, the Albion Cultural Exchange describes as its mission “to promote art, culture & community in downtown Wakefield, the Albion Cultural Exchange (ACE) offers live music, art education and open studio gallery events.” 

Maio said last night that he had been asked by the Town Council as early as June of 2022 to move the ACE Center toward a form of management similar to the Americal Civic Center, which is managed by a town employee as opposed to a committee. 

Maio said that he met with the ACE Committee and chairman Christopher Carino and made it clear that it was a town building and had to be run as such, but was met with pushback. 

Maio said that on April 4, he went ahead and implemented the changes. The building is now being managed by Dan McGrath, who also runs the Americal Civic Center. 

Town Counsel Thomas Mullen reviewed for the Town Council what led up to that point. He said that on March 9, he sent a letter to Carino outlining several concerns, including the use of a security camera in the building. That was problematic, Mullen said, because town employees occasionally work there and cameras can’t be deployed without negotiating with the respective town employee unions. 

This also raised privacy concerns, Mullen said, after he heard that the camera was synched to Carino’s personal computer. 

There were also questions around the ACE Center’s procurement of maintenance services and whether those were handled properly with respect to public bidding. 

But most troubling, Mullen said, was the fact that the ACE Center’s web site was soliciting donations for “The Friends of the Albion Cultural Exchange,” an entity that Mullen determined did not exist. At the time, there was no listing for any 501(c)3 charity by that name on the Secretary of State’s web site, Mullen said. 

Carino told Mullen that about $1,100 had been raised, of which about $800 had been spent, but provided no accounting to support that. Mullen said that he asked for specific information such as names of donors, banks, dates, disbursements of funds, etc. He said that Carino did not provide that information but asked why other groups in town were not being similarly approached. 

Mullen also said that meeting minutes were missing from 15 meetings of the ACE Committee. 

Mullen stressed that he was not alleging that anyone did anything wrong, but was concerned that a town committee was not handling funds in the proper way by raising money for a town-owned building in the name of a non-existent charity. 

“My inquiries got nothing but deflection and misdirection,” Mullen said. 

Town Councilor Jonathan Chines observed that while the ACE Committee has done some great work, they appeared to have overstepped their bounds and lacked transparency in their fundraising. He made a motion to dissolve the ACE Committee and continue to have McGrath and the town manage it.  

Town Councilor Michael McLane said that he was concerned about everyone involved getting due process. He wondered if it was fair to punish the whole committee. 

“I’m disturbed by how we’re treating volunteers,” he said. 

Mullen maintained that Carino’s due process was his opportunity to provide the answers to Mullen’s questions. Regarding the rest of the committee, he said that the town has simply decided to go in a different direction in terms of managing the facility. 

Mullen said that dissolving the ACE Committee would be an appropriate response to the circumstances. If the committee was disbanded, he said, there would be no need for any further inquiry. He stressed again that he was not asserting that anything illicit was done. 

“We have asked questions and have not gotten straight answers,” Mullen said. 

Town Councilor Edward Dombroski said that he would like to see a new committee organized to strictly handle the programmatic offerings at the ACE center. Maio said that members of the Arts Collaborative have already reached out with offers to help in that area. 

Town Councilor Anne Danehy said that there may have been a lack of understanding of correct procedures and said that it was the Town Council’s responsibility to make sure that it didn’t happen again.   

Dombroski suggested making the Town Council vice chair position responsible for educating and guiding committees appointed by the Town Council on matters of proper procedure. 

Ultimately, the Town Council voted 6-1 to disband the ACE Committee. McLane was the dissenting vote. 

Reached for comment today, Carino praised the work of the ACE Committee. 

“The Albion Cultural Exchange Committee built a world class art gallery over the past eight years which is the envy of the North Shore artist community” he said. “It is unfortunate that the Town has chosen to abandon the project. The ACE Committee had requested of Chairperson Mehreen Butt to be placed on the Town Council agenda for many months but was denied the opportunity to present to the Town Council. Kudos to Councilors Vincent and McLane for recognizing that fair, reasonable and ethical processes did not take place and the community and the committee were all short-changed as a result.”