How have things changed in Charlotte in the five years since the controversy over Angels?
While the Angels legacy includes a lasting mobilization of arts supporters in the political arena, among other positives, it also can claim a lasting timidity at the box office, where established companies too often offer safe fare with little creative risk. The public funding debate helped to re-establish the arts as an appropriate forum for the exchange of ideas among people of good will who happen to disagree. Unfortunately, the shadow of Angels also extends to troubling self-censorship by producing agencies that fear financial and/or political repercussions as a result of their work. (From “Has Charlotte Healed,” The Charlotte Observer, April 14, 2002) TOM BUSH,former Republican member of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, who cast the deciding vote to eliminate local funding for the arts: Do you stand by your vote in the Angels controversy? There has not been a day since that decisive vote in April 1997 that it has not crossed my mind. On the one hand, we had the unmit
