New Arts Endowment Using Old Funding Plan--For Now

The first funds from the new Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts are being awarded under old guidelines of the city’s cultural affairs department, scotching an anticipated city council vote on new guidelines that some local arts activists had spent months gearing up for.

“Unfortunately, the (new) guidelines aren’t done yet, so we’ve got to do the next best thing, to use existing processes,” Al Nodal, general manager of the cultural affairs department, said in a phone interview.

The endowment, which could generate $20 million annually, will not be fully operational before July, 1990, and much of its budget--about $15 million expected from fees on municipal and private development--probably won’t be available until fall at the earliest, city officials say.

But $5.8 million from the city’s general fund is already available, and cultural affairs department officials at one time had planned to deliver an interim spending plan for it to the Los Angeles City Council by July.

But because a “needs assessment” study yet to be undertaken by the city to help determine the interim plan probably won’t be finished until January, cultural affairs department officials have opted to use existing department guidelines to determine recipients of the $5.8 million, making a July vote by the council unnecessary, Nodal explained.

Under the existing guidelines, 165 arts organizations that have applied for funds since last year will be awarded a total of $3 million in grants by July 1, he said, and in January, during the next grant round, the remainder of the $5.8 million will probably be awarded.

Since February, hundreds in the city’s arts community, organized into an advocacy group called the Los Angeles Arts Congress, have held several meetings to voice their needs for endowment funds and were encouraged by some city council members and the cultural affairs department to show up at City Hall for the interim plan vote.

“We were told over and over to prepare for a big show of support,” and that the community’s funding needs would help shape the interim plan, said Susan Franklin Tanner, a theater producer and congress planning committee member.

In a small meeting with congress planning committee members last weekend, Nodal explained how red tape has delayed the needs assessment study. The process of hiring a firm to conduct the study has gone “slower than we thought,” he said. But the arts community’s funding needs are not being ignored, he maintained.

“The whole focus of the endowment is the participation of the arts community,” Nodal said, stressing that the needs voiced at congress meetings, many of which he attended, are being considered as officials determine this year’s grant winners and will influence decisions for January’s recipients too, he said.

An endowment advisory committee, made up of more than 100 people, including artists from every discipline, ethnic background and area of Los Angeles, will soon be appointed, he added, and a monthly newsletter, possibly noting future council votes and other endowment business, should debut June 1.

Though some congress members were disappointed by the July vote cancellation, committee members at Saturday’s meeting seemed to react favorably to Nodal’s explanation.

“People are in such a hurry to get this money,” said Rabia, a poet, “but if (the endowment is not developed) with a real structure, the whole thing will tumble down. I feel good knowing that (city officials) are building the structure.”

Nodal said that a show of arts community support will be needed in September, when the council is expected to vote on the largest single source of endowment funds, a permanent ordinance requiring a 1% fee on all non-residential private development projects over $500,000.

The fee, which could generate up to $10 million annually, is now held in place by a temporary ordinance, and Nodal and other observers believe that the development industry may oppose it.