ARTS COUNCIL SEES HOPE FOR ITS NEW 3-YEAR PLAN

The California Arts Council kicked off the new year here Friday on a note of unanimity.

At its first regular meeting of 1987, the 11-member state arts funding agency swiftly and unanimously elevated Harvey Stearn as its chairman. The race was won without opposition; Stearn’s was the only nomination.

The action came as no surprise to council members and observers, many who had predicted that Stearn, a Mission Viejo developer who had served as vice chairman for two years, would easily claim the post.

The council also elected Joanne C. Kozberg, a Los Angeles Music Center administrator, as vice chairman. Kozberg also ran unopposed and won by unanimous vote.

Immediately after the elections, Stearn delivered both good and bad news as he addressed the council at the Asian Art Museum.

Two years ago, Stearn said, the National Endowment for the Arts temporarily deferred the council’s basic state operating grant. (It was the first time this had happened in the council’s 10-year existence.) Among the concerns the NEA cited, he said, was that the council lacked a long-range plan and programs for ethnic minorities. After rewriting its NEA grant application, the council was finally awarded the grant later that year. (For fiscal 1986-87, the NEA grant makes up about $620,000 of the council’s current $13.5 million budget.)

However, this year, said Stearn, who was in Washington last week to serve on an NEA panel, the NEA has recommended that the arts council be given a three-year basic state operating grant, instead of just a one-year grant.

“In the last 12 months, we’ve put together a three-year plan,” said Stearn, who authored that plan, “and we’ve begun to develop initiatives for new programming. The NEA was extremely complimentary towards the council and we’ve been recommended for a three-year multi-grant, so we won’t have to reapply for the grant each year.

“This has not been approved yet, but the likelihood is it will go through. We’re viewed (by the NEA) as having come a long way.”

Stearn warned, however, that the council must continue to develop the programs for which it has won the recent NEA praise. This could be especially difficult, he said, because the budget proposed by Gov. George Deukmejian for fiscal 1987-88 is essentially “flat.”

Council director Robert Reid said Friday that only $60,000--to evaluate the council’s new multicultural (ethnic minority) grants program--would be added to the council’s current budget under the governor’s proposal.

Therefore, Stearn said in an interview that areas of paramount importance to the council this year will be:

--Its multicultural programs. This year the council will award a total of $500,000 to ethnic minority arts organizations. It is the first time grant monies have been earmarked specifically for these groups.

--Its individual artists grant program. This is another first; the council has previously channeled its funds to artists through arts organizations, never before awarding funds directly to individual artists.

--Its folk arts program. No grant funds currently exist for folk artists or organizations, but the council last September hired a folk arts coordinator for one year, who, working with a 12-member advisory panel, will help design a program and recommending funding amounts and areas.

“If we don’t address these new programs, we could jeopardize our NEA funding,” Stearn said. “We might have to make funding adjustments--we might have to trim some programs to keep these others going.”

Stearn added that the Legislature may vote to augment the governor’s proposed flat budget before it becomes final in July. Reid said in a later interview, however, that the possibility is somewhat grim. The council should be grateful that its budget was not recommended for a cutback, he said, as have other state agencies, such as the department of education.

In other business Friday, the council set forth some guidelines for its individual artists program--even though the $200,000 the council sought the program in its 1987-88 budget proposal was denied in the governor’s proposed budget.

However, the council voted, among other things, to award 40 fellowships at $5,000 each in the program’s first funding year (1988), and it defined the categories it will fund as literature, media arts (such as film and video), new genre, (such as experimental, and performance art and installation), visual arts, and performing arts, including dance, music and theater.

Four out of five new council members attended their first meeting Friday. They were Jerry Yoshitomi, Randy Washington and Laurel Dickranian (serving her second four-year term) of Los Angeles, and Sally Arnot from Eureka. Nick Coussoulis of Redlands did not attend the meeting.