$1.6-Million Deficit Hedge Is Pledged to Arts Center

Hoping to dispel worries that taxpayers would be saddled with a financial loser, supporters of a proposed Thousand Oaks regional performing arts center pledged up to $1.6 million Tuesday toward an endowment to cover expected operating deficits.

The announcement, coming just one week before city voters cast their ballots on the $22.3-million arts package called Measure C, was carefully timed to draw media coverage and increase the measure’s chances in the campaign’s waning days.

The bulk of the pledge, $1 million, came from Prudential Insurance Co., an industry giant that developed the planned community of Westlake Village and still holds about 3,000 acres in Thousand Oaks. Prudential said it would match any corporate contributions up to $1 million.

The gift needs final approval by the company’s board of directors.

The rest of the amount promised Tuesday would come from land donated by a second firm, Los Robles Office Partners, which promised 1.3 acres due east of the Los Robles Golf Course driving range. The land is valued at $575,000, according to the Alliance for the Arts, the Thousand Oaks group formed in 1979 to offset cultural center deficits.

Pledge Tied to Passage

Both firms’ donations, announced at a news conference at North Ranch Country Club, will be made only if voters approve Measure C and construction of the center begins.

Measure C is a non-binding ballot issue on a City Council-endorsed plan to build a 1,800-seat theater, a 299-seat theater, an art gallery and an outdoor amphitheater, and to assist the Conejo Valley Unified School District in establishing theaters at three high schools.

Construction costs would be borne by the city’s redevelopment agency, which expects to take in $265 million over 40 years from a redevelopment zone along Thousand Oaks Boulevard. The proceeds would come from additional property taxes generated by new projects along the thoroughfare.

Tuesday’s news conference was called jointly by Alliance for the Arts and For Measure C Committee, a group that, in raising more than $16,000 for the campaign, has outspent opponents by nearly a 7-to-1 margin.

“We at Prudential are very interested in the continued progress of the city of Thousand Oaks,” said Richard C. Davis, vice president of Prudential’s development group. “We should call upon our friends in commerce and industry . . . to assist in raising funds.”

The City Council has given Alliance for the Arts the task of raising at least $3.25 million for the endowment. Interest from the fund, cultural center backers say, would cover possible operating deficits, thereby sparing city residents annual arts subsidies.

Estimates of the deficit’s size have ranged widely. And how it would be handled has emerged as an important political issue in the campaign.

Predict Deficits of $700,000

Aside from a basic philosophical opposition to public funding for the arts, opponents have directed their attacks on the possibility that the city’s financial commitment will go beyond a one-shot infusion of building funds.

In a report released in January, Economic Research Associates, a Los Angeles economic consulting firm hired by the city, predicted that deficits would run above $700,000 in the early years of operation and then drop below $600,000.

Richard D. Booker, president of an opposition group, the Thousand Oaks Taxpayers Assn., acknowledged the political value of the Prudential pledge, calling it a “real coup” for Measure C proponents.

But he questioned the value of the pledged land donation in reducing operating deficits.

“Voters should recognize that it’s a long cry from the $10 million we really need to offset the deficit,” Booker said.