L.A. Endowment for Arts Urged : Panel Calls for New Agency, Plus Major Funding Changes

Declaring that “the time is right for Los Angeles to adopt a comprehensive arts policy,” a blue-ribbon city task force Wednesday called for the creation of a powerful, quasi-public Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts and sweeping funding changes that could generate an additional $25 million here each year for the arts.

The report of the Los Angeles Task Force on the Arts, which took two years to develop, was formally presented to Mayor Tom Bradley at a press conference at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center downtown. The task force consisted of nearly 50 key arts, business and civic leaders appointed by Bradley and former City Council President Pat Russell.

Bradley said he hoped “those of us who make decisions can find ways in which we can implement at least some of the recommendations.” Los Angeles is no longer tagged as a cultural wasteland, he added, but “we clearly have not done enough.”

Councilman Joel Wachs, whose work spearheaded the arts project, said the report “is a model for other cities to follow . . . the arts are not a frill. They bring us together, give us a sense of place, indentity, community spirit and pride.”

The report, which now goes to the City Council, recommended establishment of the Los Angeles Endowment as a private, nonprofit arts organization as well as “the city’s designated agency” to coordinate long-term cultural planning, arts promotion, “percent-for-arts” funding programs, support for individual artists and arts organizations, and technical assistance.

At the same time, it recommended adoption of the following new sources of arts revenue:

--One percent taken from construction costs of all city capital improvement funds, ranging from new municipal buildings to the construction of new parks to the creation and maintenance of the “urban infrastructure” such as bridges, tunnels, storm drain projects, street and road improvements. It is also proposed the city “allocate one percent for the arts from the cost of all capital improvement projects including those of proprietary departments like the Department of Water and Power.” Altogether, this is projected to generate about $5 million a year.

--One percent from private development on all projects over $500,000 in value excluding single-family houses and excluding land costs. This is expected to bring in $15 million a year.

--Eight percent of the city’s hotel bed tax, with the funds administered by the endowment. This is expected to add up to $4 million, according to builder Robert F. Maguire III, chairman of the task force, and Wachs.

--Increased funding, unspecified, from the City Council to the city’s Cultural Affairs Department “to enhance its ethnic and community outreach programs,” as well as maintenance of the city’s “present commitment to support and enhance” existing departmental programs and operations.

At present the department receives less than $4 million in funding from the council for grants and to support 12 existing programs and facilities, including the Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park. This year the department is distributing $800,000 in grants. Meanwhile, another $2.9 million for the arts is generated through the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, limited to redevelopment areas such as downtown, Hollywood and Watts.

While the report cited the need to enhance Cultural Affairs Department funding, the power and the money would appear to reside with the newly created endowment. “Its specific role will be to create links between the public and private sectors,” the report said. The endowment could also “commission significant public artworks.”

As envisioned by the task force, the endowment would administer $15 million from private-development money, $4 million from the hotel-bed tax--and “up to 60%” or $3 million from the capital improvement money which “could be allocated to on-site or area-related percent-for-arts.”

Up to 60% or $9 million of the private-development money “can remain on-site and at least 40% (or $6 million) will be placed in a fund to be used for more general purposes.”

The remaining $2 million from capital-improvement money would be added “for more general purposes” to the Cultural Affairs Department.

The redevelopment agency would continue to administer its own program, the report continued, “unless it elects to have a portion or all of its percent-for-arts funds administered by the endowment.”

“While the Department of Cultural Affairs is the city’s official arts agency,” the report stated, “the task force has examined its strengths and weaknesses and concluded that the new functions would be better serviced by a cooperative liaison” between the department and the endowment.

The endowment will “supplement” the department, the report added, “by devising the city’s long-range cultural master plan and carrying out all functions which require cooperation with the private sector.”

No mention was made, by name, of former general manager Fred Croton who resigned under fire in November over discrepancies in his job application. However, in the appendix there was a note that “Cultural Affairs (Department) has not fulfilled all of its described functions” because it “never had an adequate budget” and “until recently Cultural Affairs has been plagued by an ongoing and widely acknowledged management problem best characterized as lack of communication and cooperation between the general manager and his staff.”

The report also did not mention the appointment of a task force to consider turning the Municipal Art Gallery into a semiprivate institution, which was revealed separately Tuesday. In an interview, Maguire said, “I applaud the proposal for the Municipal Art Gallery.”

As envisioned by the report, the endowment would be governed by a 19-member board of directors including the still-to-be-named general manager of the Cultural Affairs Department, the presidents of the City Cultural Affairs Commission and the Cultural Heritage Commission, the administrator of the CRA, the president of the Los Angeles Endowment, a member of the City Council as well as six members of the arts community--three working artists and three representatives of arts organizations.

“The city has an opportunity to create an arts support structure which is unmatched anywhere,” the report noted, adding that the proposed policies “will benefit all segments of the population both culturally and economically.”

Currently, the report added, city funding amounts to $1.53 per capita for the arts. “In comparison, New York City allocates $8.87 (a total of $88 million in 1986), Baltimore allocates $6.36 and Miami allocates $5.20.”

In the chairman’s statement accompanying the report, Maguire provided a preview as to what the endowment might accomplish. “One of the recommendations of the endowment will be a change of procedure in the selection of architects for public buildings to substantially upgrade design quality,” noted Maguire, whose major business project at present is Library Square downtown.

Maguire credited Wachs for providing “the original vision . . . leadership and support.” In October, 1985, Wachs introduced similar proposals to the council as an omnibus funding measure which prompted the task force’s appointment.

First stop in the council for the task force report is the Recreation, Parks, Library and Cultural Affairs Committee which Wachs chairs.

“I would like to move this as quickly as possible,” he said in an interview before the press conference.

Wachs predicted that the report has “a really excellent chance of passage” by the full council in a couple of months. “A lot of council members have become increasingly aware of the great importance of the arts to the city,” he said. “And the proposal for the first time has broad multicultural elements in all geographic areas, so each council member will see the importance to constituents. It’s not focused on just one or two areas.”

The councilman added: “This is a very proud moment for me that the task force has endorsed and expanded on my dream.”