Aid for Creative, Not Con, Artists

Everybody loves the creative arts. They enrich our lives figuratively, while also enriching our cities literally by generating spending and jobs, and invigorating neighborhoods.

Happily, within the last decade there has been an awakening in Los Angeles to this potential, as evidenced by the construction and expansion here of major cultural institutions, the announced plans for more, a rising design consciousness and the increased arts offerings in scattered galleries, schools, theaters and makeshift facilities across the city.

But much, much more needs to be done, especially if Los Angeles is to match its burgeoning economic power and become a center of culture and distinction, let alone emerge as a more engaging and livable city. So states a recently released report on the arts here, drafted by a blue-ribbon citizens’ task force.

The report declares that “while the city is unique both in physical form and ethnic composition,” what cultural boom there has been “has not really touched much of its population” because of a lack of adequate support for artists and outreach programs, among other things.

According to the report, “the arts in Los Angeles are woefully under-funded and poorly promoted by any regional or national standards.” It notes that the city’s per capita spending is less than one-fifth that of New York City, “although Los Angeles rivals New York as the country’s most important cultural center.”

With this in mind, the report recommends that Los Angeles enact a so-called Percent for Arts program under which a fee of 1% be levied on major private construction projects and on all city capital improvement projects. In addition, it calls for a hotel bed tax and increased city allocations. The report concludes that these steps could produce about $25 million annually, providing a healthy source of funds for the arts.

Such programs have been successfully initiated by a host of other cities. As task force chairman Robert Maguire declared in a letter to the development community, the Percent for Arts concept is “an effective, long-term strategy for supporting the arts without placing a disproportionate burden on any one part of our economy.” The letter was sent to generate support for the concept, which will be a subject of City Hall hearings over the next few months.

There should be little debate over the Percent for Arts concept, and certainly little over the need for the funds it would produce. Many legitimate cultural groups not blessed with well-heeled and connected board members are struggling to survive, while other well-intentioned efforts are stillborn. There is, across Los Angeles, a fertile creative art scene waiting to be seeded.

However, what should be questioned and debated is the task force recommendations on how the seeding should proceed.

Disturbing is that the prime recommendation of the report is the creation of a private, nonprofit arts organization, to be called the Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts, to develop a cultural master plan for the city and to administer the funding.

We understand too well that such an organization was in part conceived to circumvent some of the management problems that the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs has suffered in the past and to avoid the political pressures that most likely will arise in the City Council over the allocation of the percent funds in the future.

The council does have a history of making messes of departmental honey pots, with few members displaying any sensitivity for cultural efforts. To them, an arts event is inviting a glad-handing movie star or two to a fund-raising dinner. No doubt, if the Cultural Affairs Department was given the task of administering the funds, the council would get sticky fingers.

But not altogether successful and without incidents of skimming and scams have been the efforts of some “nonprofit” and “public-private partnership” experiments, including a few that have involved persons who played a role in drafting the task force recommendations.

The first and highest order of business of some who work for endowments or similar “nonprofit” entities tends to be to endow themselves, followed by controlling the use of the funds to fulfill an elitist view of the arts and build up a favor bank to feather possible nests in the future.

Though they may coat their actions with impressive rhetoric and disingenuous smiles, the actual aiding of needy artists, frail arts institutions and worthy cultural experiments more often than not is incidental. But if it happens, you can be sure the nonprofiteering elite will take credit, just as sure as they will be filling their glasses and plates at the wine-and-cheese buffet celebrating the event.

The report’s recommended prime assignment of the endowment to draft a “long-term” cultural master plan also deserves to be questioned. The development of such plans tends to turn out to be costly, self-perpetuating labors, full of sound and fluff, signifying little and effecting less. It is the sort of undertaking that former cultural affairs General Manager Fred Croton would have loved.

What the city also does not need is another boondoggle, such as the Pershing Square revitalization effort where, under the guise of a public-private partnership, hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds have been spent on salaries, consultant fees, cross-country trips, receptions, dinners and a trumped-up competition, leaving the cupboard, and park, bare.

It would be a tragedy beyond repair to the Los Angeles cultural community if the Percent for Art program was turned into a relief act for art and architecture dilettantes and their favorites and family.

Somehow, the program must be shaped and safeguarded to serve creative artists, not con artists.