Bayside resident Mark Metcalf is an actor who has worked in movies, TV and on the stage. He is best known for his work in "Animal House," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Seinfeld."

In addition to his work on screen, Metcalf is involved with the Milwaukee International Film Festival, First Stage Children's Theater and a number of other projects, including the comedy Web site, comicwonder.com. He also finds time to write about movies for OnMilwaukee.com.

SECOND OF THREE PARTS

After the great success of Chris Allen's first year as the Milwaukee International Film Festival's operations director in 2006, we all felt that the growth was just beginning. It was suggested at that early date, and even before, that an independent board be formed that would more faithfully represent the entire city of Milwaukee.

Louis Fortis had formed a not-for-profit organization called Milwaukee's Future Foundation, whose function was to produce the Milwaukee International Film Festival. The legal Board of Directors of that not-for-profit consisted of Louis Fortis as president / chair, Dave Luhrssen as vice president-who also had the title executive director bestowed upon him-and Caroline Goyette as secretary / treasurer.

Goyette was working at the time for Luhrssen at the Shepherd Express, but soon after moved out of state. When contacted about it in early 2008, she vaguely remembered being asked to be on the board, but had little idea of what the responsibilities were. Once she understood, she promptly resigned. Goyette's replacement was Matthew Astbury, yet another Shepherd staffer reporting to Shepherd Express publisher and editor-in-chief Fortis.

Most successful, fully-functioning non-profits, especially those concerned with the arts, have a board of anywhere between eight and 35 people. The advantages to having a large and varied board are obvious. You are represented throughout the community at many levels and areas of influence and therefore have access to a much larger base when raising funds and marketing your events. And raising funds is the bottom line in all non-profit work. You must raise funds in order to operate and bring the service that you have promised to the community.

Everyone involved in building the festival was so busy putting together the 11 days of film celebration each year and bringing the varied educational programs to high school students throughout the area, that even though they were aware that the board of directors of the non-profit Milwaukee's Future Foundation, which was supporting production of the festival, was the same two people that operated the for-profit organization known as the Shepherd Express (In other words: Fortis and his employee, arts and entertainment editor Luhrssen). There was nothing practical they could do about it even though it bordered on being an unethical conflict of interest, or at the very least it seriously muddied the waters surrounding the already murky workings of the not-for-profit.

We all have a tendency to trust that those who pose as our superiors are at least equal to us in their moral and ethical dealings. Sometimes, it's just not the case.

Most people closely involved with the festival had talked about and even asked that it be given a greater degree of independence from the Shepherd as early as 2005. It would have enabled the staff to work more fluidly and we would be able to expand our advertising base beyond the weekly freebie entertainment magazine that represents itself as an alternative publication.

Fortis would not allow any local paid advertising except in the Shepherd. It would also make cash flow easier to track. As it was, all expenses had to go through the Shepherd for approval and reimbursement and that took time and a lot of paperwork. The answer to the request for independence was always a parental analogy about the child not being ready to leave the nest. And this came from two men who had never raised children.

After more than a year of asking, Fortis finally began to make some decisions to give the organization more independence. A bank account was established and expenses below a certain dollar amount could be handled internally. Interestingly, one of the first things he did was to stop the insurance plan for the festival's employees, which had been administered through the Shepherd Express.

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