Given the mass resignation from the board of trustees of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music, de facto leaving control of the academy to co-founders Michael J. Jamanis and his wife Fran Veri, and given the school’s inability to meet its financial obligations beyond the end of the current semester in June, it is time for the state attorney general’s office to intercede and either appoint a new board or ask a common pleas judge to do so.
Despite it being a tenant on a short term lease, PAM, as now controlled by Veri and Jamanis, presumes to be an equal party to negotiations involving building owner United National Community Bank and Millersville University. Reports were that the University was even hesitant to follow up on its initiative unless and until the couple was no longer associated with PAM.
NewsLanc has been told that most of the recent trustees resigned because they feared that the founders’ intransigence to acting fiscally responsible would result in trustees being held individually liable to the state for workers compensation payments and to creditors. This is further reason for the attorney general’s office to become involved.
Certainly the University will know how to operate a music school, and it has the resources to launch important projects. Furthermore, it likely would be interested in retaining some faculty and programs. If only the Jamanises would get out of the way…
