Los Angeles Festival : FESTIVAL WINS VOTE, NOT DEBATE

The Los Angeles Festival won a key vote of support on the floor of the City Council this week by a substantial 9-3 count, but it came at quite a price.

For the third time this month, the festival leadership has been put in the position of defending artistic choices against political realities, of having to explain that the festival is internationally rather than locally focused, and that even while they are heading toward a surplus in tight budgetary times, it would be nice to have the city’s vote of confidence behind them.

Still some may have even wondered whether $22,433 worth of equipment, in the form of city rentals or from the city’s stock--including items as down to earth as 30-gallon trash cans--was worth some of the rapier-sharp rhetoric.

At issue was the question of declaring the 24-day festival, which begins Thursday, “a city-sponsored special event.” This would allow city departments to provide the festival with such items as: portable toilets ($3,076), a 10,000-pound forklift ($720), three kinds of trees ($2,864) and 20 tons of gravel ($180) for the Cirque du Soleil event; two skytracker searchlights ($750), ficus trees ($529) and a stage ($375) for the opening ceremonies at City Hall; and wide risers ($7,565) and canopies ($2,556) for the John Cage Musicircus at the Triforium downtown.

At stake, however, was not trees, but prestige. Successor to the considerably larger Olympic festival, this festival seemed to need something special. Or as Councilman Robert Farrell explained, a yes vote (which he gave) “puts the stamp of approval on the Los Angeles Festival.”

Despite the vote, the weight of debate belonged to the opposition:

“Are we creating kind of a snobby arts festival here?” asked Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who represents a part of East Los Angeles. “Why were people from the community not included? Is it (the festival) representative of Los Angeles, or is it representative of its corporate sponsors? “

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the mid-Valley, said he thought it was “kind of chintzy” for a $6-million festival to be asking for $23,000 when it has support from “people like Times Mirror, Occidental Petroleum. . . .”

“I don’t find it in my heart to vote for any exclusionary practice,” said Councilman Nate Holden, who represents the mid-and-southwestern Los Angeles district Mayor Tom Bradley once had. Holden charged that festival leadership showed “a real lack of sensitivity” in not programming enough local minorities and in not presenting the festival in “areas where minorities live.”

He suggested that the $1-million challenge grant awarded by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency might have been been spent instead on “overtime to police, fire and paramedics as crime is going up and up. . . . “

Is this the event launched by the much-heralded 1984 Olympic Arts Festival?

Leigh Drolet, associate director and general manager of the festival, who represented the festival during the council session, walked out of the meeting, in a grim huddle with Valerie Fields, cultural liaison for Mayor Bradley--the festival’s staunchest supporter at City Hall.

At festival headquarters at the Embassy Hotel downtown, associate director Tom Schumacher, who was to have spelled Drolet, said he was “surprised the debate lasted so long.”

Festival director Robert Fitzpatrick, who also directed the Olympic festival and who is also president of the new $2-billion Euro Disneyland project, was not present. He had “an important meeting at Disney,” Drolet said.

“These are the events that are the most community oriented,” she said Thursday of the itemized requests, adding that she “didn’t have a chance” to point that out to the council.

Originally about $1,500 of fee waivers was included for installing banners and “pulldown” material on street lights, but a city official said the city’s Board of Public Works decided to waive the fees on its own. (The president of the public works board is Maureen Kindel, who is also chairman of the festival board.)

Councilwoman Joy Picus, citing the economic benefits the city derives from the arts as well as the international recognition, said the council members should be “falling all over each other” in support, in an effort to say, “ ‘How much do you need? What can we do?’ Because every success of this organization makes us look good. We are the bottom-line recipients.”

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter reminded the council that the festival was established “to bring to Los Angeles performing arts from other parts of the world.”

However when Councilman Michael Woo tried to explain that the companion Fringe Festival “accomplishes many of the goals of ethnic diversity” that Molina and Holden want, the argument backfired.

“If L.A. and the minority community get to participate in the Fringe festival,” scoffed Molina, “that’s just the way it’s going to be reflected: We’re part of the fringe, and not part of the main city of Los Angeles.”

The council’s relationship with the festival this summer has been like a game of musical chairs. The disputes remained the same; only the players shifted position.

This week, Molina and Holden were like fresh recruits taking on the festival, using much the same allegations about lack of participation from Los Angeles’ minority community and locations in minority neighborhoods that Farrell and Councilman Richard Alatorre aired at the Finance and Revenue Committee hearing 2 1/2 weeks ago. “I’m not privy to the special reports,” Molina noted. Drolet conceded that if the festival is “in some hot water, it’s (due to) a lack of education” by festival officials.

Meanwhile, Bernardi had mirrored the points of the council’s finance chairman, Zev Yaroslavsky, who at first argued that any arts organization expecting a $200,000 surplus should not be coming to the city for help. On Aug. 18, after public and private sessions with Fitzpatrick and his top deputies, Yaroslavsky, Farrell and Alatorre voted to back the festival.

Wednesday, they were the seasoned veterans, defending the festival with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“This is the Los Angeles Festival,” said Yaroslavsky, “almost exclusively financed privately and through the Olympic Foundation. . . . This is the way it should be done.”

“This is a good deal for the city,” Farrell said, “but it is certainly something for me to take back to South Los Angeles and the people I represent in the arts community. I know this is not the best representation of us, and I do not like the fact that the people who are involved in financing this thing call the shots through their choice of the artistic director.

“Not that the choices are bad choices,” Farrell added. “They are, in fact, good. . . . The point is, it was done for us, not with us.”

And Alatorre commented: “Ms. Molina, many of the same concerns you have raised were the same points I raised. . . . I have decided to support the (money) they asked for, with a very clear understanding that the concerns that have been raised should be addressed for the next festival--if in fact we are going to be having a festival the next time around.”

The real cost of this debate may be the impact on the festival scheduled for 1989. Fitzpatrick will not be around. The city appears to be serving notice that, if asked for help again, it will want a say in festival events.

“I think this might suggest next time you’re not coming to the city at all,” Yaroslavsky told Drolet. “I’ve always had difficulty getting into the business of telling an arts festival what to show, what not to show. I think it’s a very short step from that to government intervention and lack of artistic freedom.”

Bernardi seemed to agree. “I think you people coming here are making a mistake. Next time you come you’re asking for $45,000?” Then, referring to the 15 members of the City Council, Bernardi added: “You’re going to be dictated to by 15 fiefdoms,” referring to the 15 members of the City Council.