Director fleeces Maribor's Culture Capital budget

The Slovenian city of Maribor will be European Capital of Culture 2012. A new theatre and house of culture with an estimated cost of around 80 million euros is to be built for the occasion. The daily Dnevnik criticises all the secrecy surrounding the project and that the mayor of Maribor has used the project to buy the participation of Maribor-born theatre director Tomaž Pandur: "The city will no doubt benefit from having a new culture centre. But the managers of the European Capital of Culture have not made the slightest effort to gain the support of the citizens for the new centre. The idea wasn't even on the list of investments needed for 2012 previously, and there was no international architecture competition. Why bother when Pandur already had a ground plan in his pocket back in March. ... No economic analyses or studies regarding the centre have been presented to the public. The only incontrovertible fact is the director's burning desire for this centre so that he can cut himself yet another generous slice of the city's budget."

» full article (external link, Slovenian)
More from the press review on the subject » Cultural Policy, » Slovenia