Letter: AIC’s future

Thanks to the Weston Observer, Weston once again has an easily accessible forum for public discourse. This is a privilege and one that all the hard-working volunteers who brought the Observer to life have provided. Accordingly, I’d like to exercise this privilege and use this as an opportunity to respond to the recent article about the Weston Art & Innovation Center (“What is the future of the Weston Art and Innovation Center?” Oct. 9, 2025). Reporter Addison Antonoff did an admirable job summarizing a lot of the history and some complex financial information into one article, and I can add to that reporting with some facts:

• The AIC is effectively a department of the library. The AIC’s manager can be thought of as similar to a manager of a department at the library, e.g. the children’s room. As such, the AIC is overseen by the library director and it is the director who is ultimately responsible for hiring, staffing, administrative oversight, and financial decisions.

• The AIC Advisory Board is strictly that: advisory. It has no fiduciary responsibility over the AIC’s core finances, including payroll. This is intentional: the library trustees, an elected body of officials, already have fiduciary responsibility for the library, of which the AIC is a part.

The trustees have taken a vote to discontinue the relationship between the library and the AIC. Whatever new form the AIC takes, it will require a significant set of new talent with skills that will be able to replace the skills lost by the removal of the library director’s oversight and the library trustees. I and the other members of the AIC Advisory Board look forward to creating this new version of the AIC with the appropriate new senior management and governing board.

Cecily Cassum, Weston AIC Advisory Board

Dalton St., Boston