CITY PROBES CULTURAL AFFAIRS POLICIES

A major investigation is under way into “the personnel policies and practices” of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department under General Manager Fred Croton. Before it ends, all current and former full-time employees during his 4 1/2 years there will be contacted.

“This will tend to be a far-reaching investigation,” Ray Allen, assistant general manager of the city’s Personnel Department and the head of the investigative team, told The Times. “I’ve been here 16 years and this is only the second (of such a scope).” He expects it to last until nearly the end of the year.

The inquiry, approved by unanimous consent by the City Council on May 29, was prompted by the termination, with one day’s notice, of Rod Sakai, 31, who had worked on various cultural programs for the city for nearly eight years. He was dismissed March 18, just as his 240-day “emergency appointment” to an upgraded position as art curator was about to run out. At the time, Sakai directed the city’s murals program, the Bridge Gallery (on the enclosed bridge between City Hall and City Hall East) and Los Angeles’ pint-sized municipal art collection at City Hall.

A Japanese-American whose father was a superintendent of street and tree maintenance with the city for 33 years, Sakai, in city reports and in an interview, alleges ethnic discrimination. At his San Gabriel home recently, he also asserted that Croton has been arbitrary in his treatment of employees.

Allen said the investigation would focus on minority problems as well as arbitrary treatment of individuals. “It’s relatively all-inclusive,” he said. “It’s not limited to minorities or females. We’re looking at not only what might be disparate treatment of individuals and groups, we’re also being asked to comment on in-house personnel practices that affect all.”

Croton dismissed the notion of discrimination on his part. In his office at City Hall on July 3, he said: “My own personal feelings are that I’ve worked a long, long time for affirmative action.” As for the investigation: “Well, I welcome it. Let ‘em do it. And if there’s criticism, and fair criticism, I’ll be responsive.”

The 50-year-old general manager, executive director of the Bronx (N.Y.) Council on the Arts before coming to Los Angeles, added that if he is “someone who stands correcting, (then) I hope I’ve got the wisdom to correct. I really do.”

The department--a consolidation of arts and cultural functions previously belonging to other city departments--came into being in July, 1980. Croton became the department’s first general manager in January, 1981, after a nationwide search.

As the $56,000-a-year cultural chief, Croton runs a dozen programs and centers, from the Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park to the Watts Towers Arts Center and the McGroarty Cultural Arts Center in Tujunga. With about 50 full-time employees, the department has one of the city’s smallest budgets.

Croton declined to discuss the Sakai case, saying “it’s under investigation” and that he didn’t want to create “a thrust and parry about Croton and Sakai.” The word fired does not apply to Sakai, he said. “It’s a technical thing that occurred there where he had a temporary appointment.”

As an “exempt” employee without civil-service standing, Sakai did not have job protection; under his emergency appointment, he earned about $24,000 a year. He does not dispute the legality of Croton’s action, but calls it “brutal.” “He called me in Monday afternoon and told me had made his selection for art curator and it wasn’t going to be me and that I can collect my vacation pay,” Sakai recalled. “He didn’t give me any reasons.”

Sakai is job-hunting; his six weeks of vacation and other time-owed pay has run out.

The Cal State Long Beach graduate, who was an art major, passed the civil service exam for art curator in January with the fourth-highest score and was eligible for appointment. Croton had just filled two art-curator openings from the same exam list with persons receiving higher and lower scores. Croton next appointed another higher scorer as the third curator.

Sakai said he never thought to ask Croton to return to his old job as art instructor: “I was totally stunned.”

The Engineers and Architects Assn. and Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, then chairman of the Personnel and Labor Relations Committee, issued pleas on Sakai’s behalf. At a meeting March 27, Snyder told Croton to “search your conscience.” Croton claimed that while Sakai’s employee evaluations were generally above standard as an instructor, he had to “counsel, advise and admonish” Sakai about his performance during his 240-day emergency appointment.

Sakai claimed their later clashes centered about what he called favored treatment accorded “certain friends (of Croton’s), ‘political’ friends,” and he named Shirley Levine, mother of Rep. Mel Levine (D-Los Angeles), and Marion Siciliano, whose husband Rocco is chairman of the executive committee of the Ticor Corp. and chairman of the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. “They are both very good artists, Shirley and Marion,” Sakai said, “but to get a show in, you have to be reviewed like anyone else, by me and Fred.”

Croton replies that Sakai’s charges are “a total distortion” and “unfair to the artists.”

Both artists deny the existence of a “political” connection, saying they were chosen because Croton liked their work.

Levine said she takes “exception to the term political. . . . Let me tell you how I know Fred Croton. I had an exhibit at Skirball Museum and at the opening (April 8, 1982), he came up and introduced himself. I did not know him, and he showed an immense interest in my work. He came to subsequent exhibits, and to my studio. ‘I’d love to show your work,’ he said. In 1984 he told me he’d like to coordinate it with LAVA (Los Angeles Visual Arts), and in the interim he had me see Rod Sakai, after it was decided my work would go in. That event was changed twice, and each time it was changed, I had priority. I had the choice of keeping the original LAVA date. . . . The head of Cultural Affairs had invited me, and that’s good enough for me. I didn’t know Sakai existed at that point. For the mechanical details he had me go to Rod.”

Siciliano said, “First of all, my husband never even knew Fred Croton. I ran into Fred Croton at exhibits and I happened to be introduced. At the beginning of the year I saw that the Bridge Gallery was mentioned in the paper and I asked him whether it would be possible to exhibit there. He said he wanted to come out to the house (where her studio is), but beforehand I sent in all the biographical material, the resume and all slides to him. Within a week or so he came (to her studio). He said he liked my work and wanted me to exhibit. It was essentially a commitment. Very shortly thereafter I met Sakai.”

At a council committee meeting April 24, John J. Driscoll, the city’s top personnel officer, reported that he had been unable to persuade Croton to retain Sakai and the matter went to the City Council.

Without mentioning Croton by name, the Personnel Department was directed to determine “alleged discrimination” against any current and former Cultural Affairs employees during his tenure. Investigators were specifically directed to contact, among others, “employees who have resigned, retired or have otherwise been separated from employment.”

Allen’s team, which is working on the investigation part time, last week mailed a questionnaire to all Cultural Affairs employees, both civil service and exempt.

“Based upon these responses,” Allen said, “I would expect probably we would interview those who identify some kind of a problem.”

Croton said he hopes for “a balanced” report and that investigators will “not just talk to the discontents as it were, but there are a lot of people around who think I’m doing a decent job.”

The investigative team’s draft report will go to Croton for response on matters he deems “not factual or unfair,” Allen said. A final report will go to the City Council.

On June 28, Samuel Sperling, affirmative action counselor for the City Employees Asian American Assn., turned over 10 names of minority persons--plus Sakai’s--to Personnel investigators. “They have all been dumped on, which means some have been forced out and others treated rather shabbily,” Sperling said. “I’ve not done my own independent investigation, (but it was) information given first by one employee; he suggested other names and those names suggested names.”

“I don’t what he means by dumped on. “ Croton replied. “Let Personnel look into it.”

Last week, Croton said that “part I of the investigation” exonerated his office of any ethnic discrimination, at least in terms of numbers. He said a Personnel survey showed “an improvement in all categories of minority employment.”

However, investigation chief Allen said the survey is the “annual affirmative-action review done with each department.” While it will figure into the final report, “the fact that they (might) have good numbers doesn’t indicate they don’t have a problem. We’ve been asked to look at this in the context of problematic personnel practices.”

In a brief chronicle of his experience, Croton, who grew up in New York City, said he attended City College for about six years, mostly at night, but never graduated. He was drafted into the Army, stayed a year and a half, then did a year’s replacement service at a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed boys in Illinois. Then he directed “neglected theatrical masterpieces” at the Figaro, a coffeehouse theater in Greenwich Village. “My background in the arts is in the theater,” said Croton, who maintains that “when they get around to writing the history of Off-Off Broadway, eventually they will have to come to me.”

Doing Off-Off Broadway in the early ‘60s, he said, he “really began to develop” and became interested in arts management. He went to Asia in 1963 and stayed five years. In Japan, he acted as adviser to a “major producer/director/author of stage plays.” Back in New York, he joined a company producing television commercials. When that “business began to grind down,” he worked for one of the company’s clients. In 1973, he became director of the Sharon (Conn.) Creative Arts Foundation, a summer performing and visual arts center. Two years later, he took over the Bronx Arts Council.

Shortly after Croton’s arrival here, recalled Clara Louvier, a former Cultural Affairs Department employee now with the Department of Recreation and Parks, “he came to see me and talked. Someone else had already told him we were both from the Bronx. He told me he had a theater background . . . (and said), ‘I’m going to be with this department for 20 years and this department is going to be a monument to me.’ ”

Rod Sakai began working for the city on July 3, 1977. “I saw my father, he had security and benefits, and I thought it was a good way to raise a family (he is single). . . . It was a great job.” Sakai started as an art instructor in Recreation and Parks, working on the murals program that put art on city buildings under the direction of Judy Baca. When Baca became director of a social service arts agency in Venice, Glenna Boltuch, who holds a BA in art from UCLA and a master’s from the University of New Mexico, took over the program; the McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga also came under her charge.

Boltuch and Sakai worked together until Croton put Sakai in charge of the murals program in March, 1983, adding the Bridge Gallery and the city art collection to his duties. Croton also moved Sakai to the office next to his, a move that didn’t particularly please Sakai, because of what he had seen happen to Boltuch.

In the summer of 1982, while Sakai and Boltuch were at Watts Towers overseeing murals being painted by underprivileged youth, Boltuch was either fired by Croton (her version) or given an interim extension (his). She mounted a lobbying effort that would do a politician proud. Councilman Howard Finn, whose councilmanic district includes Tujunga, went to bat for her with the mayor, and she retained her job.

Trying to account for the apparent blossoming of his own career, Sakai noted, “I was well-liked in the department. I was non-controversial, nonpolitical, I just kept a very low profile, I did my work.” He stayed an art instructor until the emergency curatorial appointment on July 1, 1984. “I think he (Croton) was trying to groom me to be his right-hand person. . . . It was like everything was going fine and he was happy with the way I was doing things . . . and then I guess things changed on him. I did mostly what he wanted but I questioned a lot of things.”

Trouble began over Sakai’s longtime association in gallery activities with Joseph Terrell, a Beverly Hills artist who had been director of the Los Angeles Street Scene celebration. In October, 1983, Terrell helped Sakai mount an exhibition of local Scandinavian-American artists at Bridge. Sakai said it had “one of the largest turnouts ever.”

Shortly after the monthlong exhibition, Sakai said Croton called him into his office and ordered him not to deal with Terrell, or be suspended. “He was angry and I was angry, but I wasn’t going to say anything emotional that would hurt me. I said, ‘OK.’ ”

After several days of avoiding Terrell, Sakai decided to tell his friend what had happened. Terrell wrote Croton, charging him with “careless insinuation” and “trumped-up hearsay” to “defame my integrity.” Terrell sent copies to a dozen persons, including Bradley. Croton ordered Sakai to respond to Terrell. Sakai refused. “Ever since that letter was sent, it was downhill. After that, like he was on my case.”

On June 26, 1984, Croton requested and received an exemption from the mayor’s hiring freeze for two art curator positions, including Sakai’s. That month Sakai also got a “Dear Rod” letter from Bradley, thanking him “individually for your assistance in developing our exhibition on the 1932 Olympics, and its opening reception in City Hall. . . . “

The personnel crunch for Rod Sakai came toward the end of 1984 over exhibitions at Bridge Gallery, which features the work of developing local artists. Until then, Sakai was able to review artists’ slides and plan exhibitions months in advance, with but one proviso: displaying nothing that could be considered pornographic.

“When I was (first) given the responsibility of running the Bridge Gallery,” Sakai said, “he (Croton) gave me full responsibility. Toward the end of the term he wanted to review all of the works; he wanted control.”

The turnabout started last summer when Croton told Sakai he didn’t want him booking artists too far ahead. In March, 1984, Sakai had notified Alice Phillips, a watercolorist who grew up in Santa Monica and now lives in New York City, that he intended booking her into Bridge in May, 1985.

By the end of 1984 Sakai says he was being “memoed to death” by Croton. Although their offices were next to each other, they rarely spoke. Meanwhile, Croton gave Sakai two more duties--overseeing art in city offices in West Los Angeles and at the satellite city hall in Van Nuys.

The first time Croton overruled Sakai came toward the end of 1984, after Sakai had scheduled the linear/graphic photography of Joseph Terrell and Croton decided to put in the acrylic paintings of Shirley Levine for the month of January. Despite the earlier confrontation with Croton, Sakai said he thought Terrell deserved a viewing and he booked him.

Croton overruled Sakai’s next show, choosing Marion Siciliano (the corporate executive’s wife), another painter, over Sakai’s choice, Peter Winters, a photo-realist painter in oils.

Out of that dispute may have come a political embarrassment involving the mayor.

On Nov. 19, in a memo to Croton, Sakai suggested exhibiting artists Peter Winters, Sy Edelstein and Alice Phillips (a high school classmate of Boltuch) in March, April and May, respectively, and enclosed slides of their work.

On Dec. 10, after a flurry of memos back and forth, Sakai described the artists. He said Winters is “a talented photo-realistic painter (who) has a keen sense of lightings and shadows . . . most accustomed to the great masters Vermeer and Rembrandt.” On Dec. 18, 1984, Croton said he wanted to see firsthand examples of Winters’ work. “I called Peter, and he said we could come to the studio anytime.”

They never went. “I would go into Fred’s office,” Sakai said, “and he was either too busy or would say, ‘Let’s deal it with it later. . . . “

Sometime in February, Sakai recalled, “he called me in and told me he wanted to review all exhibitions in advance, and not to book anything six months ahead of time--’I just want you to book month by month.’ And I got the impression he wanted all previous commitments canceled and that if I wanted any of them, I would have to review it with him.”

Croton ordered Sakai to “arrange and schedule” Siciliano for March and Sakai began juggling schedules with other artists he had promised to book, moving a few to the gallery in West Los Angeles. He booked Edelstein there for March and April; his works are still on exhibit. He said he told Phillips to “hang in there,” that he intended to keep her show at the Bridge in May.

He thought his credibility was being damaged.

When Sakai was terminated March 18, he phoned a union representative and various artists. He called Phillips, who recalled Sakai saying, “ ‘I’ve been fired, and all my shows have been canceled, starting with you.’ I was on the verge of shipping. . . . “

Sakai remembers telling her he was fired and that her show would “ probably “ be canceled. He did not contact anyone else because “I was too bitter, and I figured, ‘Let the next curator deal with it.’ ” When Phillips asked Sakai what she should do, he told her to call Croton or assistant general manager Rod Punt--or write the mayor.

At the time, Sakai--and apparently Croton--did not know that Phillips’ father, Gifford Phillips, an art collector in New York, is a friend of Bradley’s, a former delegate to Democratic conventions of the 1950s and ‘60s, and regularly contributed to Democratic campaigns. Alice Phillips, who had already spent money for invitations, told her father who, she said, wrote Bradley.

About a week later, Phillips said Punt called her and said he was acting for Croton who was out of town. Without mentioning the mayor or her father’s letter, “He told me he never heard of me, he had never seen my slides, and asked me for more slides. So I sent the new slides Federal Express. . . . “ Several days later, he said he was “going to give me the green light with my show and that since his boss (Croton) was out of town, he said he was ‘taking a big risk.’ And I kept saying that my work was not political or sexual so he didn’t have to worry.”

Fred Croton came to Alice Phillips’ opening night at the Bridge. “He sort of came out of nowhere,” she recalled, “and said, ‘Really, there was some misunderstanding.’ I said, ‘You canceled my show.’ And he was trying to say it was Rod and Glenna’s fault. . . . “

Today, Croton says he did not know Phillips was “coming in until we started getting phone calls from New York saying there was this artist showing up. We hadn’t a clue.” Nor, he says, does he know about any letter from Gifford Phillips to the mayor. “All I know is when she said she had a show, we honored it.”

Meanwhile, Alice Phillips thinks about Rod Sakai. Even though he was out of a job, Sakai helped her put her show up and he helped take it down. “He was true to his artist. I hope he gets his job back.”