After opting not to put on Baltimore’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in 2023, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) will produce the parade in 2024 in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office, representatives announced Wednesday.
The Baltimore Book Festival will be held in Waverly, where local merchants and others held the Waverly Book Festival in April, but next year’s event may be shifted to the fall.
The Top of the World Observation Level on the 27th floor of the World Trade Center Baltimore will be renovated with new exhibits replacing the current displays, which are out-of-date.
And the independent organization that puts on Artscape, the Inner Harbor fireworks and other events for the city will have new leadership, after its chair and vice chair depart effective Dec. 31.
Brian Davis Lyles, the current president and chair of BOPA, and BOPA vice chair Franklin N. McNeil, Jr. said Wednesday at a board meeting that they will step down effective Dec. 31 because their terms are expiring. They said they will also leave from a sister board, Baltimore Festival of the Arts Inc., for the same reason.
Lyles, the Director of Development at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, didn’t say who will replace him and McNeil after Dec. 31, but he said he expects replacements to be identified by then. Their departure will leave three BOPA board members whose terms aren’t expiring: Andrew Chaveas, the board secretary, and board members Jeffrey Kent and B. R. Hammed-Owens.
Lyles also said the board hopes to have an update soon about BOPA’s search for a CEO to lead the staff. Since June 2, Todd Yuhanick has been serving as interim CEO, and he is one of three candidates under consideration for the permanent position. The other two candidates have not been named.
BOPA is an independent organization that has a contract until June 30, 2024 to serve as the city’s events producer, arts council and film office, and its board meets quarterly.
Before Yuhanick was hired, Lyles served in an unpaid capacity as BOPA’s interim CEO from mid-January to early June, following the resignation of former CEO Donna Drew Sawyer. Lyles ended Wednesday’s meeting by thanking the staff and board members for all of their work to promote and celebrate Baltimore.
“Despite everything that’s gone on, it’s been a pleasure working with you,” he said. “Thank you for supporting me, supporting us, supporting BOPA, supporting the city.”
Lyles, Yuhanick and others then provided updates on a variety of BOPA activities and events, as the organization awaits new leaders in 2024. The changes in the makeup of the governing board, they said, will not have an immediate effect on the work of BOPA’s staff of 42 full-time and part-time employees.
Among the subjects they addressed were:
Funding: The Ways and Means Committee of the Baltimore City Council voted on Monday to restore $581,334 of BOPA’s budget for fiscal 2024, a cash infusion that would help cover operating expenses for January, February and March of next year.
In June, the council voted to withhold more than $1.7 million in requested funds, with the understanding that the money would be restored if BOPA took steps to address concerns that council members had about BOPA’s operations and governance. In September, $581,334 was restored. The full council is expected to vote on Monday on the request to restore another $581,334, as authorized by the Ways and Means Committee this week.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade: The Mayor’s Office has put out a call for applications from groups that want to march in the 2024 parade, scheduled for the MLK Jr. federal holiday on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. The parade will begin at noon at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Eutaw Street. More information is available at mayorsoffice.event@baltimorecity.gov. The application deadline is Dec. 18 at 11 p.m.
In January, then-CEO Sawyer disclosed that she had no plans to produce the parade in 2023 and called for citizens to take part in a “Day of Service” instead. Sawyer had previously been slow to bring back Artscape, the Baltimore Book Festival and other events cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sawyer’s decision drew immediate criticism from U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, former Mayor Sheila Dixon and others. In response, Mayor Brandon Scott said he lost confidence in Sawyer’s ability to lead the organization and called for her to resign, which she did on Jan. 10, and the Mayor’s Office produced this year’s parade instead of BOPA. Sawyer later received $83,232 – half a year’s salary – to step down.
Baltimore Book Festival: Yuhanick and Baltimore City Arts Council director Christopher Brooks said BOPA is working with Waverly Main Street and others to put on the 2024 Baltimore Book Festival in Waverly. It will be the first time BOPA has put on the Book Festival since 2019, when it was held in the Inner Harbor along with the Light City festival.
Yuhanick said the exact dates for the 2024 book festival will be announced around the first of the year, but he indicated that it may be held in the fall – the time of year it was held when it was at the Inner Harbor. “I’m comfortable saying the fall is the perfect time for a book festival,” he said.
Top of the World Observation Level: BOPA has received a $15,000 matching grant from the Baltimore National Heritage Area to modernize the display at the Top of the World Observation Level on the 27th floor of the World Trade Center Baltimore, an office tower at 401 E. Pratt St. that is owned by the State of Maryland.
According to Director of Development Sarah Gibbons, BOPA has a March 1 deadline to match the grant. Gibbons said the venue needs to be updated in part because its exhibits are 15 years old and contain out-of-date information. Angela Carroll is the curator. Gibbons said BOPA would like to raise the money and unveil the upgrades by the fall of 2024.
Lyles said he’d like to see the upgraded space used for a New Year’s Eve event to help raise funds to supplement what the city provides to support BOPA’s work. “I think it’d be a great opportunity to fundraise for BOPA and its activities,” he said.
New Year’s Eve fireworks and drone show: Yuhanick said BOPA and the Mayor’s Office will cap off a day of waterfront activities on New Year’s Eve with a free Inner Harbor fireworks and drone show starting at midnight. He said on Tuesday that the fireworks display will last about eight minutes and the drone show will last about eight minutes.
A drone show, or drone light show, is an aerial display that uses a fleet of synchronized drones, each fitted with LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights, to create patterns, shapes and animations in the air. Image Engineering, a global events company based in Curtis Bay, will coordinate the drone portion of the event, which will celebrate Baltimore. Depending on the weather, organizers say, the lights will be visible from up to six miles away.
Artscape 2024: Artscape 2024 will be held on Aug. 2, 3 and 4 – a return to summer after this year’s rain-shortened event in September. In 1982 and 1983, it was held in June. From 1984 to 2019, it was held in July. Yuhanick didn’t say exactly where the festival will be held, but he indicated it likely will stay in and around the Mount Royal Cultural District, where it has been since 1982.
One advantage of returning to summer, Yuhanick said, is that organizers will be able to make full use of Mount Royal Avenue from Charles Street to North Avenue, because the Maryland Institute College of Art and University of Baltimore (UB) won’t be in session. Organizers weren’t able to make full use of Mount Royal Avenue this year because fall classes were in session in September and access to the campuses had to be maintained.
The summer timeframe “gives us the ability to bring back Mount Royal Avenue, between the Lyric and UB, which I’m really excited about because I think that’s the core, historic center of Artscape,” he said.
Sawyer, in her mid-70s, had pushed to move Artscape to September because she didn’t like the idea of her employees working in the heat of summer. No one else had advocated strongly for a schedule change. Yuhanick said the new date was arrived after BOPA and the Mayor’s Office consulted with area stakeholders.
“This seemed to be the most viable date that worked best for all the stakeholders,” he said. “We know this is going to be a great date moving forward.”
Leadership changes: BOPA has been working with “governance consultants” to get a series of recommendations for reconstituting its board, which has lost a number of its members over the past several years and doesn’t have many artists on it – a concern of Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey.
Board members said they hope to have recommendations available for review by the Mayor’s Office and by City Council members before the Christmas holiday. Lyles said BOPA’s CEO search committee is “hard at work” and he hopes to have more to report after a meeting next week.
BOPA’s contract to serve as the city’s events producer, arts council and film office is due to expire on June 30, 2024. Tonya Miller Hall, Senior Advisor for Arts and Culture in the Mayor’s Office, said last month that the city is required to notify the BOPA board by Dec. 31 whether it intends to work with the organization beyond that date.
