Irvine Mulls Arts Panel, Fund Group

Irvine appears likely to join three other county cities in setting up a municipal arts authority and a related, nonprofit funding group to solicit private arts support.

Donald Rickner, chairman of the City Council’s arts committee, said he is confident that when the council approves its 1989-90 budget next month, it will include money for a nine-member Irvine Arts Commission.

A 2-year, $31,000 study--commissioned by the council’s arts panel and prepared by the Wolf Organization of Cambridge, Mass.--was presented to the council Tuesday night. Included among the two dozen recommendations is one calling for an Irvine Arts Commission under the existing department of community services. The new panel would have a full-time manager and a secretary.

Another recommendation suggests that the new commission, which would be broadly representative of the city’s population and arts community, set up a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation to raise money from the private sector to supplement public support for the arts.

A similar proposal announced recently in Huntington Beach would raise $300,000 to develop a warehouse, bought earlier by the city for $758,000, into a new municipal arts center. Newport Beach and Brea also have city arts panels.