Man Who Helped Found COMBO Is Picked Leader

The arts fund-raising organization COMBO, under fire from critics who say its expenses are too high, announced Friday that John Borchers, former executive vice president of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, will take over as executive director and chief operating officer. Borchers, 76, will officially begin work Monday, COMBO spokeswoman Linda Shirer said.

Borchers, who helped found the nonprofit, private Combined Arts and Education Council of San Diego County 22 years ago, will replace Robert Arnhym, 54. Arnhym resigned Tuesday after COMBO President Harold Starkey announced that Arnhym’s $75,000-a-year salary will be cut by almost 50% if the San Diego City Council decides on an alternative method of distributing hotel-occupancy taxes to arts organizations.

The council’s Public Services and Safety Committee voted Wednesday to establish a task force to determine an alternative method of distributing the money. Committee members have suggested a volunteer arts commission.

A seven-member COMBO allocations committee, of which Arnhym was not a member, currently determines how the money will be allocated after reviewing various requests and interviewing officials of the organizations. In recent years, COMBO has been criticized by city officials who say its budget and salaries are too elaborate.

However, Arnhym said, “one needs to be totally objective and COMBO needs to be compared to its peers” before taking such a stance. He said financial criticism did not play a key role in the decision to organize a task force.

“The committee is the most surgically clean committee,” said Arnhym, who had been executive vice president since October, 1981, and before that was a volunteer for 14 years. “The quality of COMBO’s allocations and the quality of its stewardship over its beneficiaries have never been an issue. It’s just that there are individuals in the community who felt these are public funds and should be dispensed by a public agency.”

Borchers was president of the San Diego Festival of Arts from 1982 to 1985, and is an active participant in many organizations such as the San Diego Fine Arts Assn., the San Diego Community Foundation and the San Diego Symphony Assn. Shirer said Borchers probably will be paid about $37,000 a year for the COMBO post.

“We chose John Borchers because he is very well-versed in the arts and he has a very in-depth knowledge of the arts community,” Shirer said. “We are extremely lucky he stepped forward for the position. We feel he has a lot of vitality and optimism, things the art community needs now.”