Wachs Drums Up Support for L.A. Arts Endowment

Joel Wachs is on a mission. Like a presidential hopeful, the Los Angeles City Councilman has recently been on the stump marshaling support for his brainchild, the Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts, which, he says, could “propel the city into the forefront of our nation’s cultural capitals.”

“The proposed endowment could raise from $20 million to $25 million a year for the arts in Los Angeles,” Wachs told a group of artists at a funding conference in Pasadena.

At a black choreographers award ceremony at Hollywood’s Barnsdall Park, he said: “The endowment will guarantee that, for the first time, our entire community, reflecting our broad multi-ethnic diversity, will receive grants as well as have a hand in establishing arts policy.”

And to officials of the Music Center’s six resident companies at a downtown luncheon meeting, Wachs said with a characteristic mix of ardor and affability, “I know that many of you in this room personally and through your groups know members of the (city) council. It’s time to go to them and say, ‘Hey, this is important.’ ”

The Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts, scheduled for a Nov. 15 City Council vote, was proposed by Wachs in 1985. It would establish policy and create a public-private arts-funding partnership that city officials say could raise the amount that the city annually spends on the arts from about $4 million (the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs budget) to $25 million.

(In comparison, arts funding by the City of New York is about $62 million annually. Baltimore spends about $5 million and Miami about $1.8 million, Los Angeles city officials report.)

Wachs’ plan does not really create an endowment that, like a university’s, is a separate fund generating annual income from interest and investments. Rather, the plan mixes revenue from the city’s general fund, its capital-improvements budget, a new fee on some private real-estate developments and a portion of the city’s tourist tax.

The money would be used to award grants to individual artists and arts organizations, help support live-work spaces and performance venues, commission public artworks and fund several other activities.

According to Wachs, the endowment’s revenues would come from:

--One percent of construction costs of all city capital improvements, such as new municipal buildings or parks. This is expected to generate about $5 million annually.

--One percent of all private development of projects over $500,000 excluding single-family houses. This is expected to bring in $15 million annually.

--Eight percent of the city’s hotel bed tax revenue. This is expected to generate about $5.2 million annually.

--An unspecified increased amount from the city’s general fund to enhance the Cultural Affairs Department’s “ethnic and community outreach programs.”

These funds will be administered both by a private nonprofit arts organization governed by representatives from the private and private sectors and the art community and the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Since this summer, Wachs, whose 2nd District covers the east San Fernando Valley, and his legislative deputy, Mark Siegel, have spoken about the endowment to hundreds of artists, arts organizations and arts patrons. They’ve already passed out more than 100,000 brochures asking supporters to urge Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council to establish the arts plan.

“We hope to be reaching hundreds of thousands of people in the next month,” Wachs said in a recent interview in his City Hall office. The councilman, who said he spends one-quarter of his annual income (a reported $55,929) acquiring art, has enlivened the drab room with contemporary paintings and photographs, many by Los Angeles-based artists.

But Wachs also wants to reach people outside the arts community. His endowment campaign targets those most likely to raise opposition to the proposal: Chiefly, the private development community--which would generate three-fifths of the endowment’s budget--the hotel industry and fellow council members.

Wachs said that no “organized opposition” from any segment of the community has “raised its ugly head yet.” But he acknowledged that some private developers might cause problems.

“We have people come to City Hall everyday who want to build a project in the neighborhood and they don’t want any requirements,” he told the Music Center gathering. “They don’t want to do any landscaping or contribute to parks or anything.”

But, Wachs asserted, many developers will want to help fund such enhancements as outdoor sculptures or artist-designed bus stops. A 1% tax on private development generates money for art in many major cities and helped build Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, he noted.

“The good developers, the savvy ones are those that have used the amenities to enhance their projects,” he said. “The development community will support this much more than I originally anticipated.”

Chairing the task force of arts and civic leaders appointed by the mayor to develop the endowment is Robert F. Maguire, co-managing partner of Maguire Thomas Partners, one of the city’s largest commercial builders.

Maguire said he has written letters urging support for the endowment to “every major private developer in Los Angeles.” He wrote in a 1988 task force report that “this program is a unique opportunity to show the (development) industry’s commitment to the community.”

Richard Wirth, executive director of the five-county Building Industry Assn., whose members number more than 2,000, said the association hasn’t taken a position on the endowment yet.

However, he said that though “we want to work with the councilman, we have some concerns. The building industry is getting hit for everything from schools to sewers . . . how much can we afford to pay in fees?”

As for the hotel industry’s support, Wachs is also optimistic. As he says in his standard pitch, the arts and tourism, the city’s third largest industry, are directly linked.

“It’s been quantified by several studies that the arts are one of the things that bring people to a city,” he said. “So part of those (hotel bed tax) funds should very rightfully be used to promote the arts.”

Wachs is quick to note that the endowment’s portion of hotel tax revenues will not drain funds from the Visitors and Convention Bureau or the Convention Center, but will come from the city’s general fund. And, he notes, the endowment will not cause a hotel tax hike.

Bill Miller, executive vice president of the Visitors and Convention Bureau, also said the bureau has not taken an official position on the endowment yet.

However, Miller said, the bureau would have to “carefully evaluate” whether it is “fair” that 8% of hotel tax revenues “should go to one function of the community, such as the arts,” when the bureau receives the same amount to promote the city and all its tourist attractions, from Hollywood to the beach.

To win the votes of his City Council colleagues, Wachs is promoting the endowment, much as he does for developers and the hotel industry, as a way to “to make a better city,” not just as a munificent effort to sustain starving artists.

“The arts provide a talent pool for so many of the other industries critical in our city: motion pictures, TV, communications, fashion, you name it,” he said.

Remarking that “jobs follow the people and people follow the amenities,” he cited statistics from a 1985 Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce study showing that the economic impact of the arts in the city that year, with a multiplier effect, totaled $5.1 billion.

Though Wachs said he doesn’t know precisely where each council member stands on the endowment, he is optimistic it will win the votes it needs. (A spokeswoman said the mayor wants to reserve judgment until the council vote.)

But, as Wachs says in his pitch: “I don’t take anyone for granted, and I don’t write any one off.

“That’s why I’m trying to get people throughout the city now, at this moment, to call and write the members of their council to urge the passage of the endowment.”