Five donors could save PAM

One cannot serve as a sounding board and also a reporter, thus NewsLanc has refrained from ‘scooping’ the local newspapers on many matters, including what was occurring with the Pennsylvania Academy of Music.

Anyone who knows what remarkable work Holmes Morton, MD performs in health matters for the local and, through others, national  Amish community, must stand in awe of his willingness to step in to try to rescue PAM after years of disastrous mismanagement  by the Paul Ware board.  Artists dream; leaders are supposed to be realistic.  Given the fact that cultural enterprises such as music schools require heavy subsidies by major donors to defray operating losses, in retrospect it is unfathomable that that PAM would have endeavored to spend over $20 million dollars (which ended up coming to $32 million) on the conversion and expansion of a former bank building into a major architectural endeavor (even if questionably designed.)

The Watchdog was on the periphery of this project for almost a quarter of a century due to a close friendship between his family and the Jamanis’ family.   His understanding was that PAM was to be turned into an international school of music for high school students and he felt that was worth exploring.   But Drug Policy Reform and Harm Reduction were the center of his non-business endeavors and, although over the decades family members were among the largest donors of money and efforts to PAM, he was not involved and only made a moderate  contribution.

Had it not been for the concept of PAM becoming an international music academy and its positive impact on downtown Lancaster, the Watchdog would have scoffed at the idea of spending a fortune to house the school.  Given his second hand familiarity with the Settlement Music School and Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, he understood  that donations of well over a hundred thousand dollars a year would be required simply to sustain PAM as a local music school.   Its overhead would have to be tightly controlled; its facilities modest.

In fact, the Watchdog long envisioned the Brunswick annex as an inexpensive but ideal location for PAM, with the potential of upper floors becoming dormitories for out-of-town students.  The adjoining former movie theater was part of the Brunswick and might have been relatively inexpensively converted to an adequate recital hall.    Smaller events could be performed in the Brunswick ballroom.

(Lancaster has inexplicably turned its back on the Brunswick, both as a convention center location and later as a location for PAM.  This can be attributed to short sightedness and…alas… racism on the part of at least one city administration.)

Over two decades, the piano duo of Veri and Jamanis had successful concert tours of China and had developed many valuable contacts.   In more recent years China had become very interested in sending promising students abroad to become acquainted with Western classical music and to return as teachers.

The logical step was for a delegation to visit China and explore long term contracts.  But that was never to take place.  By the time such a relationship seemed a possibility, ruinous debt had been incurred and lenders and supporters were fighting to extricate themselves from loans and guarantees.  Furthermore, the Academy had borrowed so much from endowments and construction funds that even the accountants seemed to throw up their hands at any attempt to rationalize the mess.

Both the Arthur Mann board, to which the Watchdog served as an advisor, and the Morton Board valiantly endeavored to salvage PAM.   Chairman Morton and volunteer president Tom Godfrey MD wisely placed PAM under bankruptcy code supervision.   Had the community recognize the able leadership and the excellence of  PAM’s faculty and programs, major donors would have stepped forward to provide a large portion of the quarter of a million dollar annual deficit that occurs for such endeavors.    Usually 80% of the funds to offset operating deficits comes from major donors.   Just five families – the Watchdog could name prospects on one hand  – contributing $50,000 a year would enable PAM to survive and likely thrive at its current Liberty Place location.

But an attitude of vindictiveness lingered on, even after PAM had been largely stripped of much of its assets by former leaders and supporters.  The Lancaster Establishment was both soured on PAM and intimidated by forces that turned against the academy.

It isn’t too late to save PAM.   Five major donors are all that it would take.  The Watchdog suspects the Steinman Foundation would be an excellent prospect, they have acted in a constructive manner throughout the proceedings.  He can think of two other potential sources devoted to the Academy and capable of separating what is good for kids from past disappointments.

Who else would step forward?  Probably half a dozen if they were certain others would match their grants so that funding for the school would be adequate.

Perhaps it is not  too late.