ARTS COUNCIL OK’S GRANT APPLICATION : CALIFORNIA ARTS COUNCIL OK’S GRANT APPLICATION

In record time--and with abundant good cheer--the California Arts Council wrapped up its regular public meetings for the year here, giving swift and unanimous approval to a draft application to the National Endowment for the Arts for next year’s basic state operating grant.

Although council members didn’t see the 126-page draft until the middle of last week and though the document is much longer than the applications usually submitted by most other states, the council went along with vice chairman Harvey Stearn, who described the application as being “the most informative” that could have been written under the circumstances. “It’s very, very good reading,” Stearn, chairman of the council’s planning subcommittee, told his colleagues.

Last February when the national endowment took the rare step of deferring the state’s basic operating grant for this year because, among other criticisms, the application “lacked vision and a clear sense of direction,” the council was caught in the predicament of having to rewrite this year’s application at the same time it was beginning to draft the new one.

Therefore, Stearn said, the application is a one-year explanation of programs rather than the more usual three-year plan. The new application is due in Washington Nov. 1. The council received approval for this year’s basic state grant in August.

The mood of optimism remained undiminished despite the fact that the council played to a virtually empty house in the 581-seat Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

The 11-member council is now down to 10. Ann Gilbert Getty, wife of billionaire Gordon P. Getty, appointed by former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. in May, 1982, and who hasn’t attended a meeting since September, 1984, has quietly sent in her letter of resignation. Getty’s action was essentially moot, because her term would have expired in January.

A new Deukmejian appointee, meanwhile, will bring the complement of the GOP governor’s council appointees to five.