Readers Write: The members, not the board, are the Art Alliance

Personally, I believe Shanna Robb would have made an excellent Art Alliance president. She has over and over demonstrated her exceptional ability, sound judgment and dedication to our association.

I have worked hard for the Art Alliance. I am a working artist fully participatory in the Alliance’s events as much as my health has allowed, and I know and work with many members. I do not know Marc Kassouf.

In my personal experience, I know of no other member who has given more support to the Alliance than Shanna Robb in the last few years. I worked closely with her on the very successful Banner Project and she was always very concerned with the financial viability, responsibility and accurate accounting of that operation.

She is a fine woman who put her heart and soul in her projects, each of which was very successful. I hate the way she has been treated by my own organization’s board. She has only been trying to make the Alliance even better.

I want everyone to know that Shanna is not alone in this. She is not a villain, not the bad guy; she is the whistle-blower, and maybe not even that. She is only the questioner, publicly the face of so many of my friends who are members of the Art Alliance who hate this. I’ve talked with a number of members who support Shanna’s concerns.

The Art Alliance of Idyllwild is our organization, not the board’s. We get to ask questions. We are entitled to more information. After all, it is our work, our talent, our contributions and our dues that have made it a financially viable organization. It needs to be answerable to us, the members. I think it suspicious that the board seemed to turn on Shanna only when she began to look more closely at its actions. Up to then she was golden.

Robert Ross-Clunis
Idyllwild