Angels Gate

Seven years ago, a group of community leaders set out to raise money for a cultural center that would give artists a place to work and give the community a new amphitheater. But internal bickering led to accusations, and staff, directors and artists left. From the bright beginning, what went wrong?

Chris Peterson was 22 years old when he experienced what he calls “my fall from innocence.”

Peterson wanted to set up a ceramics studio. He had heard that the Angels Gate Cultural Center, run by a private, nonprofit corporation at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, had studio space for the extremely low price of 10 cents a square foot. So he went to check it out.

The park, owned by the City of Los Angeles, was gorgeous, set on a wind-swept coastal ridge with acres of open space and a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean, the Port of Los Angeles and, on a clear day, Santa Catalina Island. The setting alone would be an inspiration to any artist, even if the cultural center buildings--World War II-era barracks from the park’s days as a military installation--were drafty and a bit dilapidated.

The center’s executive director, Roberta MacFaden Miller, was enthusiastic. She took Peterson to Barracks No. 841. If he fixed it up, she told him, he could work and teach classes there. He would be the head of a new ceramics department.

The young artist was overwhelmed. He had no teaching experience. He hadn’t even graduated from college. But, he said, Miller seemed undaunted, even insistent, and so he accepted her offer.

It wasn’t long before the arrangement began to unravel.

There were nettlesome problems, according to Peterson. Miller had not told him that a sculptor was already working in Barracks 841, and the sculptor was unhappy about sharing his space and moved out. Later, when Peterson’s classes were attracting students, he said, Miller proposed splitting his studio in half. Peterson resisted. He took his case to the board of directors, and the board’s president at the time, Joan Connor, persuaded the board to support him. Tension grew.

The last straw came when Peterson was hauled before the board to face a laundry list of what he believed were exaggerated charges by Miller. Among these were allegations that he had been drinking beer and holding parties in his studio, in violation of the center’s agreement with the city. The board considered evicting him, but decided instead to reassign him to another building. Rather than refurbish another studio, Peterson left the Angels Gate Cultural Center in frustration, 18 months after he arrived. He now has a private studio in San Pedro.

“Everyone has a fall from innocence,” he said in a recent interview. “My time at Angels Gate was my fall from innocence. I did all this work and I thought if I just worked hard, everything would be OK.”

Wider Problems

In interviews, Angels Gate board member Victor Dykes branded Peterson a “problem boy,” and Miller said the potter continually broke Angels Gate rules. But Peterson’s experience at Angels Gate Cultural Center was not unique. The center has been plagued by troubles since its inception in 1981, according to public records and complaints by city officials, former board members and artists in letters and interviews. As a result, many talented artists have left.

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said: “There seems to be a thread weaving through the complaints over the years that not all artists are treated the same. . . . After you get the same complaints from just a number of people then you begin to wonder if the fault is not beyond artists who have personal axes to grind.”

One of the artists who left, a sculptor who asked not to be identified by name, was so distraught by her experience at Angels Gate that she refused to talk about it. “If I get into that emotionally again,” she said, “I’m going to just mess myself up.”

Another, actress Melanie Jones, who directed a series of plays at Angels Gate, once wrote to Flores that she was pressured by two officials who worked with Miller to swear her loyalty to the cultural center’s administration. In response, Miller said: “It’s amusing. Artists get to be very creative in their thought.”

Another artist, Dick Oden, a professor of art at California State University, Long Beach, said on resigning from the Angels Gate board of directors two years ago: “I am simply no longer disregarding incessant, increasing and now-persuasive evidence that we are no longer a group deserving of support. . . . On too many occasions, the management of center affairs has been flagrantly guilty of unprofessional abuse of the legitimate art community.”

Bright Beginning

There were high hopes all around seven years ago, when a community group proposed using private funds to build a multimillion-dollar arts complex on city-owned land at Angels Gate Park.

The group, composed of artists and community leaders, planned to raise enough money to demolish the old barracks and build anew. There would be a 500-seat amphitheater by 1987--to be expanded in 1991 and again three years later--with a professional sound system and grids for theater lighting. The cultural center would qualify for grants and wage major corporate fund-raising campaigns. Annual business donations, according to the center’s financial projections, would reach $50,000 by 1986-87 and jump to $71,500 by the current fiscal year.

The arts complex would fill a clear need in the South Bay. It would provide artists with a place to work, and citizens--who could become members for a small annual fee--a place to view art and take classes in drawing, painting, dance, theater and the like.

All of this would be at no cost to the City of Los Angeles, whose only obligation would be to provide the land.

Today, Angels Gate Cultural Center Inc. is struggling for survival. It does maintain an art gallery; the next show, to begin Feb. 7, is an exhibit of contemporary British printmaking. The barracks have been painted and appear clean. The center does offer classes and provides other cultural programs, among them a very popular Christmas light show. Recently, a San Pedro parent-teachers organization heaped praise on Miller and the center for an art program it is offering to children at a local elementary school. The center has qualified for small grants and is applying for more. It has come a long way since 1981.

But fund-raising amounted to only $17,004 in 1986-87, and Angels Gate is nowhere near building a new arts complex. Membership is declining steadily, down to about 340 from nearly 500 in 1985. Last year, the corporation temporarily lost its California tax-exempt status (its federal exemption was never in jeopardy) for failing to file state returns.

The theater program has suffered considerably because two buildings that the center used for performances have been shut down for failure to conform to the city electrical code.

The corporation itself is mired in internal bickering. Several members have charged that the September election of board members was rigged, and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office advised the city not to sign a new lease with the center until the election problems were resolved. Officials were left with no choice but to schedule a new vote, which will be held Monday.

Suit Threatened

Nevertheless, two disgruntled members--March Beagle and Anne Alberts--say that they are pursuing plans for a lawsuit against the center and the city, claiming violation of their civil rights in connection with the election. And at the last board of directors meeting, one director proclaimed himself disgusted with the way the center has been run during his two-year tenure.

“This cultural center has to be bulldozed,” declared Nicholas Cappalia. “Every one of us should step down as a director and reshuffle the whole thing and start from scratch.”

Despite the controversy, city officials are likely to sign a three-year lease with the corporation after Monday’s election. Recreation and parks commissioners have already voted to approve the lease, and Georgiann Rudder, who heads the department’s Pacific region, has said that the election “probably will” satisfy the city attorney’s concerns.

Councilwoman Flores, however, said she might recommend that an escape clause be inserted into the agreement, allowing the city to break it if the cultural center continues to have problems.

“I don’t think we want to go on with three more years of this,” Flores said in an interview last week. She expressed belief that an escape clause would give the city some leverage and force center officials to “try very hard to manage the Angels Gate Cultural Center so that it would minimize these kinds of problems.”

Anatomy of Distress

What went wrong at Angels Gate?

A look at the history of the cultural center, including a review of public records and interviews with board members, artists and public officials, found:

This year’s vote is not the only board election in which the administration of the cultural center has fought off a challenge. In 1985, a group of artists at Angels Gate believed that they did not have enough representation on the board. They formed a group and tried to run an opposition slate of candidates, but were rebuffed when the board, relying on a technicality, invalidated a signature on the artists’ petition.

Petty arguments and infighting have been a way of life at the center for years. For the most part, those who have left Angels Gate said that Miller can be upbeat and energetic, but also difficult to deal with. They charged that the executive director arbitrarily fired people and forced artists whom she did not like to move from one studio to another, frequently after they had invested time and money improving their work space. Miller has replied that none of her decisions were arbitrary and that no one was ever fired.

In one case, two former board members--Oden and Elin Waite--complained in interviews that Miller fired a teacher because the woman was hired for a college teaching job over another Angels Gate artist who is a friend of Miller’s. The executive director says that the woman left of her own accord.

In another instance, Larry Gill, former director of the center’s art gallery and a former board member, said he left because Miller spread rumors that he was having a homosexual relationship with a much younger man. Miller denies this.

Gill, Oden and Waite and a fourth board member, Dennis Hilger, who could not be reached, all resigned within a two-month period in late 1985 and early 1986. The three who were interviewed said they had hoped to turn Angels Gate around but gave up in frustration.

Waite said she worked closely with Miller and was herself often at odds with the artists, but said she has since concluded that they had legitimate gripes and that Miller intentionally pitted the board against them.

“It was a three-ring circus,” Waite said. “There was no real reason for evicting the people.” Miller said the disgruntled artists were evicted because they wanted to manufacture goods in their studios for private gain, rather than make one-of-a-kind art pieces.

The board of directors at Angels Gate has never been a strong one, according to Flores and other critics. Some, like Gill and board member Cappalia, charge that Miller hand-picks the board members by asking them to fill vacancies. Afterward, they can run as incumbents with a good chance to win, Gill said. Flores recently suggested that the board needs to play a more active role in the running of the center and should “rein in the director” to “make sure that she’s accountable for the responsibilities that they give her.”

The center’s fund-raising efforts are trapped in a Catch-22 situation. Center officials say that they cannot raise the private money necessary to build their arts complex without a long-term, 20- or 30-year lease from the city. But city officials are reluctant to give the center a long-term lease because they are not happy with the way it has been managed and are not convinced that it can raise the money to fulfill its plans. In 1985, the city sought bids for the management of the cultural center, but no one else was interested.

Because the center is run by a private corporation, city officials say that their hands are tied in dealing with it. Flores used to have a representative on its board, and said that her staff has met with the board several times over the years to try “to get a few things straightened out, and it’s never really worked.”

More recently, Flores and recreation officials have been reluctant to interfere with Angels Gate’s internal affairs, saying the most they can do is ensure that the cultural center lives up to its license agreement and does not violate any laws.

Robert Brown, city recreation supervisor at Angels Gate Park, said: “I see a struggling nonprofit group trying to provide a service for the general public and for artists. . . . I can sympathize with them, but I can’t change anything.”

City’s Help Questioned

However, those at the cultural center have complained that city officials, in particular the Department of Recreation and Parks and Flores, have never given Angels Gate full support. Last year, when the city shut down two center buildings because they failed to conform to municipal code provisions, cultural center officials complained that the city had known all along that the old military buildings, constructed long before city safety standards were enacted, had never conformed. Parks official Rudder said that is true, but that the cultural center added wiring to the buildings that made them unsafe.

Furthermore, although Miller said she thinks that the center’s relationship with Flores is improving, some former center officials have charged that the councilwoman has never pushed for a long-term lease or helped the center get grants because she would rather see the center fail. Some contend that Flores wants Angels Gate Park to revert to federal ownership so that it can be sold to housing developers, who could earn millions from building on such a choice piece of land.

The councilwoman, however, said she thinks that the cultural center is “a great idea” and would “violently oppose” returning the park to the federal government. “I don’t know what in the world I have to gain from that,” Flores said. “I certainly have a lot more to gain from having public land to keep my constituents happy.”

As to her being more helpful to the center, Flores replied: “I don’t think that anybody who’s had the problems that they’ve had has earned the kind of support they’re asking for. . . . What they need to do is clean their own house first.”

Conversion From Old Fort

The story of the Angels Gate Cultural Center began in the mid-1970s, when the Defense Department declared San Pedro’s old Ft. MacArthur complex surplus land. The City of Los Angeles, in an effort to obtain the property, hired a consultant to carry out a comprehensive study of what the land could be used for. That study showed a need for a community arts center in San Pedro.

The report served its purpose and the federal government deeded the land, which consisted of several separate sites, to the city. The government retained the right to reclaim the land, however, if it was needed for national defense purposes or if the city did not live up to the terms of the deeds that govern the gift.

Among the sites was the Ft. MacArthur Upper Reservation, 115 acres bounded by 30th Street on the north and Paseo Del Mar on the south. In 1978, nearly half the site--51 acres--went to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which initially agreed to build a high school there, but is now revamping its plan for the land. The remaining 64 acres went to the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, which gave it a new name: Angels Gate Park.

The deed for Angels Gate Park required the city to develop it for recreation. About 10 acres were set aside for the Korean Friendship Bell monument. A recreation center was established at the park, and community groups obtained permits from the city to meet there or to use the old barracks for office space. The city, however, said that it had neither the money nor the expertise to establish a cultural center, as the consultant’s report had suggested.

Community Formed Center

At the time, Honor Kirk, a painter and then a fine arts coordinator for the city Department of Cultural Affairs, was running arts classes at Angels Gate Park. Kirk, then a San Pedro resident, knew that the city consultant had recommended a community arts center on Angels Gate land. She called together a group of San Pedro community leaders and artists, and proposed that they begin a cultural center of their own. They called themselves the Angels Gate Development Council and began pushing their proposal to city officials.

Former board president Connor, a San Pedro resident and the only member of the group who was not an artist, remembers what Angels Gate Park looked like back then: “It was a very bleak, windy dark hillside with some beat-up old barracks. We used to meet there every Tuesday night and shiver, and try to formulate a plan of what should be done with this potentially beautiful place.”

For a long time, Connor said, city recreation officials branded the development council a small, special-interest group and refused to deal with it. She said it was not until 1981, after an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times about their efforts, that the city paid any attention.

That year, the council, reconstituted under the name Angels Gate Cultural Center Inc., acquired state and federal nonprofit, tax-exempt status so that it could negotiate with the city.

Officials drove a tough bargain. In August, 1982, city and center officials signed a three-year license agreement giving the center the right to use nine buildings on Angels Gate property. The center was required to offer 10% of its classes free, give 20 demonstration seminars a year, offer six free special events and provide “continuous free exhibits.” The cultural center was to maintain the dilapidated old barracks, improvements were to be done at the center’s expense, and any renovations had to conform to electrical, fire and safety codes.

Volunteer Staffing

Kirk recalls that for the first year-and-a-half of its existence, Angels Gate Cultural Center relied completely on volunteers. It operated on the theory that artists, always in need of a cheap place to work, would agree to teach classes, improve the run-down buildings and help run the cultural center in exchange for studio space. Kirk later served as executive director and for a time as president of the board.

There were problems from the start. Connor places most of the blame on city officials, who she said “never approved of what we wanted to do up there.” She said the Recreation and Parks Department asked the group to make improvements to the buildings--like putting in new plumbing--that the fledgling center could not possibly afford. “We were always going with our hat in hand to Georgiann Rudder,” she said.

Connor acknowledged that “there was always strife” between the artists and the management, generally over studio space. However, she criticized artists who wanted space more than they wanted to help the cultural center.

“Everybody who was up there was fighting,” she said. “Some people were fighting just for themselves, and other people were fighting to keep the center’s head above water. . . . The ones who have gone up there, touched base and left, have left mostly because they could not get what they wanted. When they were not getting what they wanted, they no longer worked for the center, and that tore it down as much as anything.”

Difficulty at the Top

There were management problems, as well. Those who were there say that Kirk, a painter and former Fulbright scholar who has two master’s degrees in art, was well-intended but eventually became exhausted and was unable to manage the center with all its conflict. “It was just out of control,” said Waite, a professor of design and illustration at Waterson College, who served as an adviser to the center at that time. “They had no funds, no money--they didn’t have enough people to make it work.”

Kirk agrees that she tired of the job, and left in 1984 because she needed a break. Before she did, she asked Miller to succeed her.

Miller, a watercolor artist with a background in fashion design and art education, maintained a studio at Angels Gate at the time. She knew that there were problems--not enough money, trouble with the artists, a losing battle with the city--and initially turned down Kirk’s offer. But Kirk was persuasive and Miller ultimately agreed. She was articulate, enthusiastic and energetic and, in the words of board member Dykes, “damn well qualified.” She was hired for $5,040 a year. Her salary has since been raised to about $30,000 a year.

Miller said that when she took over, she established regular hours for the center, began a music and theater program, started a cleanup effort, conducted a membership drive, reviewed each building to see if its space was being correctly used, hired staff and secured tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.

Good Qualities

Most of the board members and artists who worked at Angels Gate--even the disgruntled ones--agree that Miller puts in exceptionally long hours and has a flair for getting things accomplished. But like Peterson, they found her charming at first but difficult to deal with later.

“She had the energy, the interest,” said Waite, who left Angels Gate when Kirk was still executive director but returned to sit on the board at Miller’s request. However, Waite said, “she has a tendency to have a length of time that she can be very nice to people, but she can get rid of them.”

Miller concedes that “I have a very definite personality. Either you love me or you hate me.” She said she believes that many artists who left may be upset with her because she pushed them too hard. “I can’t stand mediocrity,” she said. “I believe in excellence, and I believe in hard work, and I believe in paying your dues.”

There were also philosophical disagreements about what Angels Gate should be.

Waite and Oden, the former board members, said they had hoped to pattern Angels Gate after art complexes on the East Coast, where artists of national repute go to work and teach. But others wanted it to be more community-oriented.

The Small Picture

“It seemed doomed to be space given out to local artists who would make pinch-pot ashtrays,” Oden said. “My interpretation of benefiting the community was to bring talent into it.”

However, both Oden and Waite said that Miller’s management style, not the philosophical disagreements, prompted their resignations. Both said Miller spread rumors about the sex life of another one of the four, Larry Gill, and for them that was the last straw.

Gill, who directed the center’s art gallery, said he clashed with Miller on several occasions and told her privately that he thought she was creating problems for the cultural center. He said he suggested that she make a graceful exit by taking an extended leave of absence so that a successor could be appointed.

Subsequently, he said, “she started a smear campaign about me, and the campaign was that I was having some kind of a sexual dalliance” with a young man who worked nearby. Gill said that when he questioned Miller about the rumors, she denied them. He quit after that.

In a recent interview, Miller denied making the comments. “I never said that, nor would I say that.” She said Gill left Angels Gate because “he didn’t want me as director, and he lost.”

Special Scrutiny

Last summer, when a center member, Beagle, criticized the way that Angels Gate was being run, her membership-renewal application was given a special review by the board of directors because, according to a letter written by Miller, “of the critical position you have taken in regards to Angels Gate Cultural Center activities.”

Beagle, one of the women challenging the board election, said she was refused admission to several dance classes at Angels Gate. In an unusual action, center officials called Los Angeles police and tried to have her thrown out. The police interrupted the class and participants left.

Miller said the police were called because Beagle insisted on taking the dance class after the instructor said he did not want her there. The instructor has since left the center and could not be reached.

Beagle complained to city officials, and on July 31, the city Recreation and Parks Department instructed the board that Beagle was “to be allowed access” to the cultural center and its programs, “barring any compelling reason” to keep her out.

In challenging the board’s election held last September, Beagle and losing candidate Alberts said the voting for the 15 vacancies was structured to ensure victory for all 13 incumbents. The ballot was broken into two sections--the first listed the 13 incumbents’ names and told voters to choose 13 candidates, and the second listed three challengers’ names--including Alberts--and told voters to choose two. In addition, Miller sent notes to some telling them which two challengers to select. Alberts was not recommended. Center officials say that the new election Monday will have a straight ballot listing 16 candidates for 15 seats.

What to Do Now

City officials say that the cultural center’s future will depend on how well the center fares after the election.

Both Rudder, of the Parks Department, and Councilwoman Flores said that the group now running Angels Gate is not providing as much of a public service as they would like. Rudder wants the cultural center’s classes to become more accessible to “the average person that has never painted and doesn’t hardly know which end of the brush to hold.” She said her staff is trying to come up with standards that the center can meet.

Flores, meanwhile, said she would like policies set governing the treatment of artists at Angels Gate. “It really has the potential,” Flores said, “but what you need to do is get beyond the pettiness of individual personalities and get to the real aim, and that is to have a cultural center that’s good for the community and good for the artists and good for the students enrolled.”

In the meantime, Flores and Rudder said they are willing to give the cultural center another chance by signing the three-year lease. However, both said it is likely that the city will seek alternate bidders after the lease is up, and both discounted the possibility of a 20- or 30-year lease until, as Rudder said, “they have kind of a proven track record” and show the potential to raise more money.

Will Press Ahead

Miller and cultural center board members, however, say that they intend to obtain a long-term lease and build their multimillion-dollar arts complex. It will just take longer, Miller said, than they originally thought.

“We all have timing,” she said. “I thought I could get in and out of here in 36 months, build a cultural center, have a long-term lease, and leave. We all make goals and time lines, and it would be wonderful if we could meet those goals and time lines.”

Whether or not the new complex is built, the Department of Recreation and Parks does have long-term plans for a cultural center at Angels Gate Park. Under pressure from the federal government to develop the park for recreation, the department is working on a master plan that will include a community arts center to be run by a private group.

Will that group be Angels Gate Cultural Center Inc.?

“I wouldn’t stick my neck out and say that,” Rudder said. “I have no idea.”