2 weeks Ago By By Debbie Kelley [email protected]
The Colorado Springs Community Cultural Collective, a nonprofit whose primary initiative has been a workforce development program called Opus Creative Industries, is ceasing operations as of Tuesday and liquidating assets to pay off debts, according to leaders. “Based on the fact that the majority of the funds were public funds, and they no longer are available, and knowing that the philanthropic dollars weren’t enough to sustain the organization, we felt it was time to end the initiative,” Board of Directors chairwoman Deborah Hendrix said Monday. The 11,000-square-foot office the organization had been leasing at 1 S.
Nevada Ave., is being closed, and no additional events are scheduled, she said. The initiative’s café at the El Paso County Citizens’ Service Center shut down last week.
“We’re in the process of seeing if we can get a partner to take that over to continue it,” Hendrix said. The organization also is “working to sell off all the assets we have so we can hopefully pay down the outstanding debt and take care of those owed,” she said. Assets include a media arts lab, cooking equipment and other materials needed to run the organization’s entry-level workforce training programs in culinary arts, media and creative technologies, and early childhood enrichment, Linda Weise, founder and CEO of the organization, said Monday.
Operations are being shuttered with a red balance sheet reflecting a debt load of upwards of $250,000, according to Weise. However, she said, the collective is owed an outstanding invoice of $250,000 from the city of Colorado Springs for printed materials, lighting and sound work for “community engagement” for the Colorado Springs City Auditorium project , which Weise said began faltering after a change in the Colorado Springs mayor’s seat in June 2023. “In the meeting we had with our new mayor (Yemi Mobolade), he made it clear this was a project he could not entertain,” she said.
A community fundraising drive fell short of goals, and the Community Cultural Collective terminated its memorandum of understanding with the city Nov. 1, 2023. “We were able to get the project all the way to shovel-ready, which was incredibly hard when you look at historic preservation, urban renewal and new-market tax credits,” Weise said.
According to city spokeswoman Vanessa Zink, the city of Colorado Springs does not owe the collective more money. The memorandum of understanding between the two entities contained a second amendment inserted Dec. 7, 2022, allocating $250,000 from the city’s general fund, which Zink said the city paid Dec.
16, 2022. Weise said she received that payment but an additional invoice of $250,000 she subsequently submitted has not been paid. Weise said she was told by the previous city administration to do that.
Zink said the second amendment stated that “any future contributions would require a future written amendment to the agreement, signed by both parties” and that “the city is under no obligation or requirement to make any such future contributions.” “No such future written amendment came to fruition,” Zink said, therefore, “The city has no additional obligations to pay beyond the payment made on Dec. 8, 2022, since the memorandum of understanding was terminated by the Colorado Springs Community Cultural Collective on Nov.
1, 2023.” Weise has been a high-profile arts and entertainment figure, having founded the Colorado Springs Conservatory in 1994 to provide performing arts education to kids and forming the Colorado Springs Community Cultural Collective in 2020. She also has written an occasional column for The Gazette on cultural icons in the Pikes Peak region.
Her organization intended to renovate the underused 102-year-old City Auditorium to house its offices and proposed workforce development centers, and provide space for performances. Using $2.47 million of pandemic-relief funds from the American Rescue Act Plan of 2021 from the city of Colorado Springs, a business plan for the auditorium emerged in March 2023.
The detailed proposal would have turned the building into a “21st century hub for arts, culture and creative workforce in the heart of downtown, creating a social energy and building a city identity.” Meanwhile, the Pikes Peak Workforce Center awarded the collective a Workforce Innovation Grant , which paid out $1.68 million from February 2023 through Dec.
19, 2024, said spokeswoman Becca Tonn. The collective’s idea was the only proposal submitted for El Paso and Teller counties in the competitive process that advanced for the funding, she said. The organization does not owe the workforce center any money, she added.
The grant was set up on a reimbursable basis, meaning the organization had to pay for expenses and submit receipts in order to be reimbursed. The model was difficult, Weise said, and led to financial strife for the initiative, as reimbursements could take weeks. Some students filed complaints with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, some vendors also aired grievances, and the organization fell behind in its lease payments.
Weise said the organization “kept everyone informed” about the situation, and that students signed a contract that stated Opus' startup nature and that people would be paid as funding became available. “Everyone signed that; everyone knew that,” she said. A few lawsuits emerged, which Weise said have been settled, negotiated or otherwise addressed, as have the labor complaints.
“Everything has been resolved, and everyone has been paid,” she said. “The challenges and nuances of the reimbursable grant timing were always something we were having to manage. The timing posed problems that were unforeseeable.
” Hendrix, the board chair, said the initiative proved the concept worked in filling pandemic-related workforce shortages with people who had no knowledge of the culinary industry but were trained to work restaurants and hotels, for example. “They weren’t chefs, but they certainly learned about the backside and frontside of operations,” she said. Thirteen cohorts totaling 103 students ranging from 16 to 66 years old took the culinary arts program, Hendrix said.
Six students were hired by local companies to work in media arts, and 750 teachers in multiple cities received training in early childhood education. Chef Jay Gust, who owns several restaurants in Colorado Springs, said he’s sad to see the program dissolve. One student whom he trained was on track to become a kitchen manager until he had to attend to a family emergency out of state.
“I thought it was a great stepping-stone for people that want to get in the culinary field to access restaurants,” Gust said..
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