What We Know About Trump's Arts Council Nominees
Two Obscure Picks With No Public Profiles, No Presences in the Creative Community
By Jeanette Lenoir
Today we look at two more of Trump’s nominees for the National Council on the Arts, having examined the other two in a recent article. The council is an 18-member board that advises the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA, on grants and policies.
Barbara Coleen Long is the wife of Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who lists his top policy issue as “Conservative values.” A 20-year search of the Nexis news database turns up not a single mention of her before her July 12 nomination to this prestigious federal advisory board. Repeated requests to the congressman’s office to interview with Mrs. Long were unsuccessful.
The nominee is unknown in the national arts world—or even in her own small community of Springfield, other than as someone who attends local performances. Indeed, prior to July 12, the day Trump nominated her, we could not find a single news report mentioning her.
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The fourth nominee is Michelle Itzcak, a board certified, registered art therapist and a licensed mental health counselor in Indiana. What she will contribute to the national arts scene is anyone’s guess.
Itzcak did not respond to a message left on her answering machine. A secretary in her therapy office said she would notify Itzcak. The nominee did not respond to these requests.
How did Itczak get nominated, being relatively unknown in her own town’s art scene? Even Jeremy Efroymson, a major name in the Indianapolis art scene, declined to comment.
People named to federal boards usually have track records that get them into the news. So we did a Nexis news database search for all English language news going back 20 years to find news reports prior to the July 12 appointment by Trump.
https://www.dcreport.org/2018/09/10/what-we-know-about-trumps-arts-council-nominees/
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