RYAN LEAVES POST AT ARTS COUNCIL

Saying “I need to put my health first, and not my career,” Marilyn Ryan, the embattled executive director of the California Arts Council, has resigned from her $63,000-a-year post, effective Sunday.

Ryan, who will be 53 next week, has been suffering from a flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis that recently kept her out of work nearly three months. “I have had it since I was 20 years old,” she said matter-of-factly. “It comes and it goes,” said the former Rancho Palos Verdes mayor and a three-term moderate Republican Assemblywoman.

From her council office in Sacramento, Ryan, believed to be the highest-paid Arts Council director in the nation, told The Times she will undergo surgery on her joints after the first of the year. Then she “will explore some new (career) directions. There are some intriguing possibilities for the future,” she added, “but I am not committing myself to anything.”

In her Nov. 18 letter of resignation to Gov. George Deukmejian, Ryan said she wrote that now was the “appropriate time to devote an extended period of time to my health needs.”

Speaking for the administration, Deputy Press Secretary Kevin Brett noted: “She served with distinction. She was one of the initial appointments of the governor. . . . She enjoyed the full confidence of the governor. Certainly we are sorry she is going to be departing the administration she served so well.”

However, there were indications that health may not have been the only factor in Ryan’s departure.

While Ryan’s clash with Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) over the location of a Southern California Arts Council branch office drew a good deal of public attention last April, it was unlikely that the fuss would have carried much weight with Deukmejian.

There also had been criticisms involving the rash of staff resignations and a lack of planning. Last February, the National Endowment for the Arts temporarily deferred the council’s basic state grant citing as a key issue “the lack of vision and a clear sense of direction.”

“I know several council members have expressed their displeasure (with her performance),” said June Gutfleisch, executive director of the California Confederation of the Arts, indicating criticisms had come from some of Deukmejian’s own appointees to the council, “and it has reached the governor’s ears.”

Ryan countered simply: “This was my own personal decision. I wouldn’t resign under fire.”

In August, at the last public council meeting Ryan attended, some members disclosed privately that in executive session, council members talked about calling Ryan in for a formal personnel session to discuss her performance. Of immediate concern was whether she was moving too slowly in dispensing allocated funds to ethnic minority organizations.

It was also learned that within the past two weeks, Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), a member of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Arts and an influential Republican in the Legislature, had quietly asked leaders of the arts community for an evaluation of the council and of Ryan’s administration. Maddy could not be reached for comment.

In California, the Arts Council director serves at the pleasure of the governor. Part of Ryan’s problem under Deukmejian’s tight arts budgets also involved her staunch backing of Deukmejian’s policies, even when that conflicted with the direction of the council itself. Ryan has long been a loyal Deukmejian supporter. Nearly five years ago she was one of the first Republicans in the Legislature to back Deukmejian in his tough primary battle against then Lt. Gov. Mike Curb.

Ryan was defeated in her primary fight by the more conservative Assemblyman Gerald Felando. Then, on Feb. 8, 1983, Deukmejian who was only a month into office, rewarded Ryan with the Arts Council post.

Sen. Henry Mello (D-Watsonville), who has himself clashed with Ryan, recalled that they entered the Legislature together, and stated that both as assemblywoman and council director, “she’s made a real contribution to the state of California. . . . She has to represent the Administration’s point of view.”

Stephen Goldstine, council chairman and president of the San Francisco Art Institute, an appointee of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., said: “Her particular attitude toward the rate of growth of the council, especially compared to other states, made the relationship somewhat stressful. In many ways she was an able and rational public servant who was not to be taken lightly.”

Harvey Stearn, a Deukmejian appointee who is vice chairman of the Arts Council and a vice president of the Mission Viejo Co., said: “I wish her well.”

Patricia Geary Johnson of Rolling Hills, also a Deukmejian appointee, noted: “I genuinely regret that Mrs. Ryan is suffering from a serious health problem. However, I hope and I believe that her replacement by the governor with a well and full-time director will substantially improve the productivity of the council.”

It was not immediately known who will replace Ryan. Brett raised the possibility that the governor might make a temporary appointment. In the last few months, chief deputy director Bob Reid, who has been scoring high marks with the state’s arts community for his ability to learn and to care, has been serving as acting director.