County’s Bid for Symphony Role ‘Inappropriate’

A proposal that the county be allowed some participation in the management of the San Diego Symphony was labeled as “inappropriate” Monday by symphony association President M.B. (Det) Merryman.

A letter from county Supervisors Susan Golding and George Bailey was hand-delivered to Merryman on Friday. Golding pointed out that since half of the county’s population lives outside the City of San Diego, the city’s participation in the symphony’s management was insufficient.

“The symphony cannot be seen as only serving and being responsible to residents of San Diego,” Golding said. “It’s a symphony of all the people of the county. People from Rancho Santa Fe and El Cajon and Chula Vista go to the symphony and they support it.”

The symphony’s crash $2-million fund-raising campaign to stave off self-imposed bankruptcy culminated Saturday with the announcement that a pair of major donations totaling $350,000 had put the orchestra over its goal, two days ahead of its own 12-day deadline.

On Saturday the symphony’s board of directors approved a proposal to allow the city manager or his representative to sit on the orchestra’s finance committee.

Merryman said he had received the supervisors’ letter and felt that the proposal was “not particularly appropriate. It presumes that the county is making the same kind of financial support that the city is. The county’s financial commitment to the arts is embarrassing.” Merryman said he would discuss the matter with Golding and Bailey personally and “not through the newspapers” if they wanted to talk further.

The Board of Supervisors’ support for the arts traditionally has been skimpy in comparison with that of the San Diego City Council. The City Council gave $1.5 million to the symphony’s capital campaign to renovate the Fox Theatre as Symphony Hall. The Board of Supervisors gave $40,000.

Merryman also moved to squelch rumors about his future as president of the symphony association. Traditionally, the president of the symphony serves two one-year terms. “My (second) term will be up at the end of this (fiscal) year,” Merryman said. “I do not wish to continue. It’s a high-intensity job and time consuming. I absolutely, unequivocally will serve through Sept. 1.”

Merryman said there was no pressure for him to resign and that the rumors were “just some reporters trying to find something to write about.”

Golding disagreed with Merryman’s assertion that last week’s public outpouring of financial support for a beleaguered symphony was “a vote of confidence” in symphony management.

“We would not have needed a last-minute cry for help and been given a few days to raise that money if things had been handled correctly,” Golding said.

“You don’t get to the point of bankruptcy and then, when you raise money to forestall it, say, ‘See how great things were?’ It’s obvious things weren’t that great. Bankruptcy is not a statement of success. It’s a statement of failure.”

Because the symphony is a “public trust,” Golding said, she expects the orchestra’s management to make public a complete accounting of where the $2.1 million is spent. She also said the symphony board should share with the public any long-range operating plan it forms as a result of its new-found financial stability.