Washington – Kennedy Center reported federal court It won’t attempt to return President Donald Trump’s name to the building’s facade until at least Sept. 8 as another legal battle over the future of the performing arts venue takes shape.
In a status report filed late Tuesday, opponents of the move said the Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board members “intend” to disregard an earlier court order requiring the Republican president’s name be removed from the building. The Kennedy Center said it would not move forward on plans until after Labor Day “at the earliest” to allow time for legal arguments.
Lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who is an ex officio member of the board, pressed U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper for an earlier ruling, arguing that “there is every reason to believe that the defendants will attempt to enforce some or all of this latest unlawful resolution at the earliest opportunity after September 8.”
A board meeting this month that was expected to focus primarily on options for closing the Kennedy Center for renovation turned into another effort to add Trump’s name to the building, part of a broader move by the president and his supporters to leave a physical mark on the nation’s capital.
The board passed a resolution to name the plaza in front of the building after Trump and to add his name to the venue’s facade so that it reads “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” In the filing, Beatty said the board also agreed to add an additional reference to the president if the Trump Kennedy Center fund reaches $100 million.
In that event, the facade will read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump, Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
The board also voted in support of a two-year closure for renovations, while some of the institution’s signature programs, including the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, will take place at off-site locations. The National Symphony Orchestra announced this week that it will split its upcoming season among six venues in and around Washington.
Cooper ruled in May that letters spelling out Trump’s name were illegally added to the building and ordered their removal, a decision that the administration failed to persuade the courts to overturn. Since then, the area where the letters were once placed has been covered with tarpaulins, disappointing those who were calling for the president’s name to be removed from the building.
In the latest filing, the Kennedy Center made no commitment to removing the tarp, saying only that the removal of Trump’s name was done to facilitate the covering and is part of a broader system needed for “water testing and structural repair of the roof overhangs.”
More broadly, Beatty’s attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky this month questioned the integrity of the board’s vote, echoing concerns raised by Cooper when he called the March vote to close the building “ill-informed and seemingly premeditated.”
Heading into the August meeting, Kennedy Center management said it would provide the board with three options, including full closure or partial closure, which would allow “some continued public access and limited programming” in locations unaffected by the work. A third option would consider “a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”
In Tuesday’s filing, the Kennedy Center said Delta Consulting Group analysts concluded that a partial closure that would last up to four years “would increase the length and cost of construction and raise substantial safety concerns.”
The analyst “recommended that the Board close entirely for two years, which would reduce overall costs, minimize programming time from disruptions caused by construction, and best preserve the Center’s reputation as a world-class performing-arts venue,” the Kennedy Center said.
However, Eisen and Zelinsky said the materials were provided to the board just two days before the meeting. He said some of the documents appeared to have been created before Cooper’s May decision and referred to the Kennedy Center closure that was initially scheduled to take effect on July 6.
The August vote to close the Kennedy Center, Beatty’s lawyers argued, “demonstrates the same flaws as the first vote.”
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