Closing Remarks #34

The other day I was wracking my brain trying to remember when exactly I'd started this newsletter. So I checked the archives and --- lo and behold! --- a year has already blown by. It has felt like forever, but also like only a minute. Time flies when you're throwing a critical eye to the way our societies think about institutional (im)permanence!

Every time someone sends me a hot tip or hits reply to comment, it is a reminder that this work matters. Whether you just got here or have been here the whole time, I thank you for subscribing and reading and CARING!

1) Beloved SF drag bar hangs up its tassels
After a long period of financial insolvency triggered in part by the pandemic lockdowns, San Francisco's Oasis drag club will be going out of business. According to its co-founder San Francisco Drag Laureate D’Arcy Drollinger while the club will be closing its doors, they will continue to elevate drag as an art form via the Oasis Arts nonprofit, which is “dedicated to promoting, producing, and preserving queer performance and storytelling in the Bay Area.”

2) New Orleans art triennial hits pause
Prospect New Orleans was launched in 2005 as a response to the devastation of Hurrican Katrina. The founders hoped it could play a vital role in the city's revitalization. After 20 years, organizers have announced that the next event, which was scheduled for 2027, will not be taking place. Instead, the group plans to release a book celebrating it's accomplishments to date. Their future beyond 2027 remains to be seen.

3) Twice-resurrected Christian college to finally shutter
Since its founding by an evangelical ideologue in 1938, New York City's privately-run King's College has weathered many twists and turns. Though it originated in New Jersey, it moved to Delaware and upstate New York before it finally arrived in the Big Apple. In 1993, it lost its accreditation, and in 1994, it actually closed, only to re-open again in 1999 under new leadership.

In 2023, it once again lost its accreditation and has hobbled along, hemorrhaging students and no longer accepting new ones until now. However, after an attempt to structure a "teach out plan" was rejected, the group finally --- and with characteristically evangelical flourish -- accepted defeat this month.

4) Pop-up, pandemic business support center achieves its goals, quietly winds down
Five years ago, members of Oregon's Umatilla Electric Cooperative (UEC) came together to meet the needs of local business leaders who were struggling in the face of the challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID pandemic. The UEC business center was created to provide free budget advice, business support, short-term loans, and other services.

Five years on, noting a strengthened business environment and a diminished need for the BRC, they have decided to wrap up operations, returning the focus to their core business of providing energy to the area and working with community partners in other ways.

5) Worker justice group sidelined by labor dispute
The Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa (CWJ) has been doing organizing and advocacy for low-wage immigrant workers in the area since 2012. CWJ was instrumental in local struggles for higher minimum wage, a community ID program, and also agitating against wage theft. The group has weathered a fair amount of financial and administrative challenges in its short life, but it appears their demise was (ironically?) due in part to an insurmountable conflict with a local union.

6) "What went wrong at Houston Landing?"

It was a mistake for the Houston Landing to put major funders on its board, someone with knowledge of the early hiring process told me.

“The worry is that you make decisions out of fear that [funders] are not going to renew their initial grants,” they said. That “really erodes your independence.

Houston Landing was an ambitious, independent, non-profit news outlet in the sprawling Texas metropolis. Despite ample funding and a newsroom full of heavyweights, the project went bust after just three years. This super-thorough analysis from Nieman Lab aims to uncover why. Lots of sage lessons here!

7) "Why Closing Prisons — Even Bad Ones — Is Complicated"

... those who wish to see fewer prisons also note that closures are not a panacea unless they are accompanied by broader reforms. Writing this week about a planned closure of Minnesota’s Stillwater state prison, organizer David Boehnke wrote that the process should be paired with investments in recidivism programming and diverting people with nonviolent offenses away from prison altogether.

Another great piece from The Marshall Project (frankly they are ALL great!) about the many challenges ---from personal to societal to economic --- to closing prisons. While many governors ---from Shapiro in Pennsylvania to Newsom in California --- tout the state benefits of closing the facilities, the top-line number often fails to reflect the nuances on the ground.

Closing Remarks is brought to you by The Wind Down, a consultancy for exploring, building, designing, and delivering better endings for mission-driven projects and organizations, and also raising closure consciousness. If you're enjoying it, please support my work.