New Denver Mayor Mike Johnston solved a problem that absolutely did not exist this week when he decided against retaining Ginger White Brunetti as Executive Director of Denver Arts & Venues, involuntarily ending a stellar 18-year career with the city.

Without naming a replacement. Or an interim. Or having a deputy on staff. And without communicating any of this to the nearly 100 shocked employees of the department, who had to read the news on Facebook.

And, more consequently, leaving major initiatives like the voter-approved reopening of the May Bonfils Stanton Theater on the former Loretto Heights College campus very much in limbo. In 2021, Denver voters appropriated $30 million to help restore the iconic theater and its adjacent library for a planned 2026 reopening. But with $20 million still to raise just to finish the first phase of the project, Denver councilman Kevin Flynn, whose district includes Loretto Heights, is now concerned about its future.

“I am very upset by this,” said Flynn. “I had called the mayor and urged him to retain Ginger because she was the visionary behind the additional acquisition of the library building, and the concept of this as the first cultural and community center for southwest Denver.”

Arts & Venues acts both as a marketing agency to promote the economic vitality of the arts, while also managing city-owned venues including Red Rocks, the Denver Coliseum, the Colorado Convention Center, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, the McNichols Civic Center Building and the Studio Loft above the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Combined, they generate $90 million in annual revenue and attract nearly 3 million people a year. 

Arts & Venues also oversees the city’s public-art program and runs selected events like the Five Points Jazz Festival. Under White Brunetti, the department implemented Denver’s first cultural strategy plan in 25 years.

Johnston inherited a lot of problems when he was elected in a June 6 runoff. Arts & Venues was not one of them.

But when he was elected, he appointed a massive transition committee called “Vibrant Denver” that was tasked with reconsidering not only the direction of every major city department, but also the people running them. That put White Brunetti (and many others) in the awkward position of having to reapply for a job she was promoted into back in 2018, after having joined the department in 2005. Still, with all of the urgent challenges facing the mayor, reupping White Brunetti seemed like a formality.

Johnston inherits a city with a vibrant creative industry that supports nearly 100,000 jobs, mostly concentrated in the music, theater, dance and visual-arts space. Arts & Venues has compiled an impressive list of accomplishments over the past 12 years, including opening the McNichols Building as an affordable cultural hub. More specific to White Brunetti’s tenure:

• She stewarded $2 billion in city assets, including managing a $188 million capital program for public venues.

• During the pandemic shutdown, Arts & Venues filled a major vacuum by transforming itself into a significant relief agency, distributing $3.2 million in city, state and federal funding to support the devastated artist community. This was particularly impressive because it came at a time when then-Mayor Michael Hancock wasn’t committing any new money to the department.

• White Brunetti worked with partners like Denver Film to keep cultural attractions available during the shutdown, like transitioning Film on the Rocks into a safe drive-in experience. 

• Red Rocks attracted an estimated 1.54 million to ticketed events in 2022, an increase of 31.8 percent from 2021 (when it was, according to Billboard, the most-attended venue in the world).

White Brunetti did reapply for her job, as asked, and as of Sept. 3, the Vibrant Denver website (which now no longer even exists) wasn’t even listing the job as an open position. Evidently, it was. White Brunetti was among three candidates who were recommended by the transition committee to have one-on-one interviews with Johnston in mid-September. Meanwhile, White Brunetti’s deputy director, Molly Wink, accepted a job at Denver International Airport, leaving her without a No. 2.

As the process wore on, White Brunetti was asked to commit to staying until Sept. 30, according to sources at the city. Because it was her hope and intention to stay indefinitely, she, of course, agreed. But on Thursday, she was both told that the mayor would be going in a different direction for the job – and asked to please stay until his preferred candidate could be finalized. She said no, thank you, which meant she was out the next day. And the department is left demoralized and rudderless.

Neither White nor anyone from the mayor’s office, his transition team or Arts & Venues was talking about the decision on Saturday. The A&V committee was co-chaired by Nora Abrams, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and Stephen Brackett, co-founder of Youth on Record – but all committee members were made to sign nondisclosure agreements. Facebook, however, was talking about it:

• “You have set the highest of bars and left your fingerprints all over this city,” said Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, President and CEO of Rose Community Foundation and former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s communications director. “Denver is a better place thanks to your leadership, vision, energy and creativity.”

• Christine Benero, president and CEO of Mile High United Way: “You have left a legacy in our city that will impact generations.”

• Janice Sinden, President and CEO of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts: “We never would have gotten through the pandemic without your compassionate and visionary leadership on how we would recover and re-open. Your impact is deep and wide.” 

Flynn now intends to hold the mayor’s feet to a fire of his own making.

“I will urge the mayor to find a qualified replacement who knows how to oversee the development of a capital project as large as Loretto Heights,” he said. “This is the single-biggest city investment ever in southwest Denver, and I think the only way to succeed now is to hire a manager who has experience at planning and implementing such a large capital project – as Ginger does.”

Johnston, Flynn added, “has assured me that he’s totally committed to making sure this project is a success.”

If it is, it will be thanks to Ginger White Brunetti, not the mayor who inherited the largesse of her many contributions to the city. And whoever his replacement turns out to be, they will inherit a staff burned by the unnecessary loss of a competent, well-liked executive with experience and irreplaceable institutional knowledge. If he thinks that she can be easily replaced, he is being naive.

This is not the kind of decision that will inspire confidence in any of the city’s 11,000 employees.  

Sometimes change simply for the sake of change comes with real consequences. We shall see.