June 30, 2003

Supporting Bo Black

Charlie Sykes honors the years of service of Summerfest's head honcho, Bo Black. He, like myself, wonder why the festival's governing board wants her gone.

In the beginning, it was possible to dismiss Bo as Milwaukee’s version of Blonde Ambition, an attractive former Playboy cover model who had vamped her way into the job. There was gossip, sniping, and annual tut-tutting about her salary. But for 20 consecutive years, Black ran a Summerfest that got hotter and better.

Remarkably, there are still those who think that Summerfest’s success and Black’s tenure is merely a coincidence.

Because some of those folks sit on the Summerfest Board, this is almost certainly Black’s last year.
What’s weird about all this is that no one seems to know why Bo is being axed or who is behind it. The board has never provided a rationale of any sort, although there have been complaints about Bo’s outspokenness about the lease deal with the city and her own contract.

As for her enemies, Mayor Norquist is the lamest of lame ducks and former board chairman Frank Busalacchi, who is now Governor Doyle’s Transportation Secretary, is also gone.

So this is what we are left with: one of Milwaukee’s most winning executives – who runs our most spectacularly successful institution -- is about to be ousted by anonymous critics who would never be able to accomplish even a fraction of what Bo Black has done for this city.