Council Denies Extra Grove Theatre Funding in Stormy Session

The Garden Grove City Council failed to approve the Grove Theatre Company’s funding request Wednesday night after a series of confusing motions. The council also rejected a proposal to place the future of the company’s Shakespeare Festival before the city’s voters in November.

The five-member council also refused the only other funding request by a Garden Grove arts group in rejecting a $20,000 subsidy for the Garden Grove Symphony.

The theater company won a temporary reprieve of $20,000 last month, when a divided council considered an $83,000 subsidy for the company and decade-old Shakespeare Festival. Some council members had objected to subsidizing the arts but agreed to the smaller amount so as not to disrupt the summer season.

On Wednesday, until the theater company request for the remaining $63,000 came up, the council’s special budget hearing had been fairly routine.

But the Grove request launched a topsy-turvy flurry of motions in which an opponent of the theater company subsidy, Councilman Raymond T. Littrell, proposed partial funding and advocates for the theater rejected his proposal because it was pegged to placing the decade-old Shakespeare Festival on the city ballot.

Advocates said that meant the council was shirking its responsibility.

“Let’s put everything on the ballot if we can’t make a decision ourselves,” said Councilman Walter E. Donovan, who has been a consistent supporter of the festival.

Most of the debate turned on Littrell’s assertion that subsidies for the arts and all outside agencies would be better spent on the city’s police force.

“Some people have more to live for than having a cop drive by their house,” retorted Donovan, who complained that Littrell was making the Police Department a “sacred cow.”

Ironically, Littrell’s subsequent proposals for a partial subsidy to the Shakespeare festival for $15,000, in addition to the $20,000 already allocated, died for lack of support among fellow council members.

The Grove Theatre Company’s board of directors met briefly after the council’s votes, and were expected to announce whether the theater’s fall season would go ahead as scheduled. However, the board adjourned without making that decision.

Board members appeared so confused by the council’s lack of consensus that they postponed a decision until more information could be obtained from the council, according to Robert C. Dunek, spokesman for the theater company.

The council will meet again Monday to give formal approval to the city’s $47.7-million budget.

Dunek said about 85% of the theater company’s budget comes from ticket sales and other grants, and that the city’s subsidy represents only about 15%.