- How can someone work in a position for 16 months, score number one on his civil service test, and then receive a form letter in the mail that someone else has been chosen?
- Is the person who is replacing him so much more superior in experience with young people and cultural programs and working in a multicultural environment that they will blow anything that Zoot has done out of the water? Rumor has it that he’s being replaced by someone from the Long Beach Opera. Go figure.
- Zoot’s issue aside, what does this dismissal (and that’s what it is) of Zoot and the hiring of this new employee portend for the unique cultural and art programs at Homeland?
- And finally, what does this say about sensitivity to the needs of a multicultural community? Did the City of Long Beach go out of its way to assess the needs of the community that it serves and make a personnel issue based on the best interest of that community? Or did they just not care because they assumed that no one would say anything?
I believe some answers are in order.
Antonio Pedro Ruiz
The Creativity Network
562-430-8637
From: Zoot_Velasco@longbeach.gov [mailto:Zoot_Velasco@longbeach.gov]
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 10:05 AM
It is with some sadness that I inform you that I will no longer be your Cultural Program Supervisor at Homeland Cultural Center and Macarthur Park, effective October 20, 2006. After an eight-week wait (my provisional appointment officially ended August 11), another candidate was chosen. I was informed by a mailed letter Saturday.
Long Beach has been good to me and I enjoyed being a force in the artistic community. I am proud of the work we have done at Homeland in my tenure. Everything I was asked to do was accomplished. Together we have doubled programs with $20,000 less money; built a recording studio; raised $40,000 in grants and donations; revived the signature dance festival events; and set down a three-year strategic plan, approved by the Recreation Commission, to take Homeland to the next level. This year the City of Long Beach gave me a Community Service Award and the Arts Council of Long Beach asked me to join their board of directors.
To the artists and creative people I worked with, I regret that our work together must end. I have the highest regard for the artists and programs of Long Beach, especially my partners at Homeland Cultural Center. It is my hope that the partnerships we have formed and the recording studio project we just completed will live on with my successor.
I will look back at my time here with great fondness. Homeland is a model center for America and my dream job. Please carry on Dixie Swift and Manazar Gamboa’s vision and spirit after I leave. Hopefully I kept that spirit alive and infused some of my own passion into Homeland. Homeland will always stay with me.
Zoot Velasco, Cultural Supervisor
Homeland Cultural Center/ MacArthur Park
1321 East Anaheim Street
Long Beach, CA 90813
(562) 570-1655 Phone
(562) 570-8529 Fax
(310) 809-3733 Cell
zoot_velasco@longbeach.gov
This is startling news. I’m not *that* familiar w/ the Homeland Cultural Center but I am impressed by what I do know. It looks like the most relevant & best thought out “rec” program in town and I’m sure Zoot Velasco is responsible for much of its success–and after only 16 months?! I doubt that a newly installed director will take the Center along the same promising trajectory as Mr. Velasco.
I was pleased and proud that Long Beach sponsored this progressive program. This is depressing.
To whom do we voice our concerns? The Parks & Rec Dept.?