Fiscal Worries Threaten Arts Center Plan in Conejo Valley

Since 1969, civic leaders in Thousand Oaks have nursed a dream of building a cultural center that would put their affluent city on the cultural map. Projects with higher priority and squabbles over finances delayed it, but this week the dream moves toward reality.

On Tuesday, the City Council will consider a $19.6-million proposal to transform a golf driving range into a manicured campus of theaters, an art gallery and an amphitheater that supporters hope will draw renowned plays, symphonies and dance performances to the Conejo Valley.

A 121-member citizens group adopted the proposal Jan. 4 after 10 months of study, and the council is expected to place the question before voters in the June primary.

Other Arts Centers

But for arts devotees in the Ventura County community of 94,000, contentious financial issues again shadow their plans.

Heightening the financial uncertainty is the possibility that other performing arts centers will be developed in the San Fernando and Simi valleys, slicing into potential ticket revenue. An area of 1.4 million people now served only by community concert and arts groups could be deluged with professionally staged concerts, plays and art exhibitions.

But the main dispute in Thousand Oaks is over what to do about predictions that a performing arts center will lose money.

Already, those who originally opposed using city redevelopment funds to pay for the cultural center are warning that local taxpayers may be forced to bail out the project by covering operating deficits that could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Seen As Catalyst

The charge has angered those who see the cultural center as a symbol of the city’s coming of age and a catalyst for local performing arts.

“I’m sure there are people who will try to destroy the cultural center by using funding questions as a focal point,” said one supporter, Councilman Lee Laxdal.

Chuck Cohen, a prominent attorney, declared, “The cultural center represents the maturation of this community as a totally balanced, self-sustaining city.” Cohen directs fund raising for the Thousand Oaks Alliance for the Arts, a group founded to promote the arts complex.

Specifically, the Cultural Center Planning Committee favors constructing an 1,800-seat main stage theater that could be sectioned off for smaller audiences, a 299-seat theater with flexible staging for experimental plays, an art gallery and an outdoor amphitheater designed for 250 people. The group also recommends establishing adjunct theaters for students at Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and Conejo Valley high schools.

‘Tremendous Stimulus’

“It will be a tremendous stimulus to local artists and performers,” said Frances Prince, the committee’s chairwoman and a former Thousand Oaks mayor.

The 8-acre driving range at Los Robles Golf Course in central Thousand Oaks was ranked first among seven sites based on parking availability, traffic access and the size of land parcels. The city owns the land.

Judged a close second was a privately owned 16-acre parking lot just east of The Oaks Mall. But costs of building on The Oaks site could soar to $34.1 million when the expenses of building a parking structure and providing replacement parking for shoppers are tabulated.

The group’s final report recast the debate over public financing for the arts that dominated the last council election campaigns.

Section Declared ‘Blighted’

The City Council in 1982 declared as “blighted” a five-mile section of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, a thoroughfare that includes more than a dozen high-priced developments, corporate offices and the Westlake Plaza, a luxury hotel.

The aim was to collect a windfall of $265 million over 40 years, the increased property taxes expected to flow from the redevelopment zone through extensive private construction, which would be available for road improvements, low-cost housing and the cultural center.

A group of business leaders and the Ventura County Taxpayers’ Assn. assailed the city’s financing plan, saying it diverted money from county agencies and local school districts to the arts.

The use of redevelopment money also led two political activists, Richard D. Booker and Heinrich F. Charles, to campaign for a ballot question that asked whether public funds should be used to build a center. When it became clear their petition drive would succeed, the City Council approved placing the issue on the November, 1984, ballot, but not before adding a companion measure of its own.

The second measure asked voters if they wanted a cultural center under the conditions that it be built on donated land, make use of city redevelopment funds and be backed by a endowment fund that would offset operating shortfalls.

The second measure was approved by 61% of the voters. The measure that simply asked whether public funds should be spent for the complex, however, lost. It received only 38% of the vote.

Now, Booker and Charles are considering another petition drive, this time for a ballot measure asking voters whether construction should begin before the city has secured an arts endowment, perhaps as high as $10 million, that would cover the operating deficit.

Their contention is that the Alliance for the Arts, which is committed to establishing the endowment, lacks the power to raise enough money to cover shortages in income, leaving perpetual deficits that the city will have to cover.

‘Push By a Minority’

“I feel this has been a push by a small minority in the community,” said Booker.

“I’m sure they all know that Thousand Oaks is a very solvent city and a very wealthy one and that if push comes to shove, the city will back it up.”

Yet, both supporters and detractors of the committee’s plan acknowledge that support for the concept of a performing arts center in Thousand Oaks has remained strong.

“I don’t think this is an elitist effort. These are values shared within the full community,” Cohen said.

The alliance, citing a 1985 study it commissioned, maintains that it can generate $3.25 million to $5 million in contributions. As envisioned by proponents, interest from the fund would go toward covering the operating deficits.

Deficits Too Hefty

But a report issued by Economics Research Associates, a consultant for the cultural center group, predicted that operating losses would climb to $722,000 in the second year of operation, then fall below $600,000--deficits considered too big to be financed by the anticipated endowment.

The consultant’s report noted that potential arts tenants--including the Conejo Symphony, the Conejo Valley Unified School District, the Oakleaf Music Festival and California Lutheran University and Moorpark College--cannot afford market rates for theater use. In addition, Thousand Oaks lacks a prime tenant who could take responsibility for a significant block of stage time.

The report suggested additional methods of eliminating a deficit to avoid tapping the city’s till, including a ticket surcharge, corporate sponsorship of specific arts events and service contracts with long-term users of the center.

For their part, supporters note that the consultant’s fiscal analysis does not account for secondary benefits flowing from a center, particularly from increased demand for hotel rooms, restaurants and other tourist services.

Fund-Raising Drive

Moreover, they argue, an annual fund-raising drive, such as that for the Los Angeles Music Center, will pay off deficits not covered by the endowment.

Once the complex is approved, Cohen predicted, benefactors from wealthy Thousand Oaks families and corporations will be ready to support the arts.

But the pool of potential donors may have to be shared with several other cultural projects in the San Fernando and Simi Valleys.

The Cultural Foundation, a nonprofit group that has the backing of the Los Angeles City Council, hopes to begin a fund-raising drive within a month to build two projects, the Arts Park L. A. in the Sepulveda Basin and the Warner Center Performing Arts Square in Woodland Hills. Plans call for a concert hall, theaters and artists’ studios.

Smaller Center

Meanwhile, the Simi Valley arts community has city backing to study building a smaller facility, possibly including a multipurpose theater and an art gallery.

Thousand Oaks cultural center supporters are, to some degree, counting on the center’s drawing power across a region stretching from the West San Fernando Valley to Ventura.

The consultant said that by 1990 the complex could potentially attract 165,000 people a year, sufficient to support 137 performances principally for professional theater, Broadway-style musicals, and local dramatic and musical stage productions.

Arts supporters in the Conejo Valley say it’s uncertain whether the other centers will be built, and, at any rate, the Thousand Oaks facility will be the first off the drawing board.

‘Head Off’ Competition

“If we can move on ours in a timely fashion, we’ll probably head off facilities in Simi Valley and perhaps the (San Fernando) Valley,” said Mayor Alex T. Fiore.

Fiore is an avid backer of the cultural center. Fiore, in contrast to most council members interviewed, said he would support the project even if a yearly city subsidy is needed.

“I see no problem with the city offsetting a small part” of a deficit, he said, citing $200,000 annually as an example of what the city could pay.

Adds Prince: “Virtually all communities subsidize arts from government money.”

But the prospect of being saddled with a perennial subsidy for the arts troubles several council members, who suggest the cultural center plan may have to be pared down.

“I have no intention of supporting an operating deficit the city gets stuck with,” vowed Councilwoman Madge Schaefer.

“What we need is a sugar daddy.”

The immediate issue is likely to be drafting a ballot measure that ensures taxpayers realize what, if any, ongoing subsidy will be expected from them, council members say.

“I think the language has to be extremely precise as to the extent of taxpayer indebtedness and the minimum amount of endowment to sustain the center,” said Councilman Lawrence Horner.

“We don’t fire any blanks in this city on capital projects.”