Costa Mesa Council to Vote on Creating Arts Agency

In a move reflective of Costa Mesa’s desire to be Orange County’s “City of the Arts,” the City Council Monday will vote whether to create an agency that would provide continuous, stable support of the arts and tourism.

The proposed agency would be called the Tourism, Arts and Promotion Council, and it would be a “nonprofit public-benefit corporation” with a five-member volunteer board of directors to be appointed by the City Council.

“This is a concept we’ve been working on for about three years,” Vice Mayor Mary Hornbuckle said Friday. “I think it’s an excellent idea if it does indeed provide services (to benefit) the hotel industry at the same time as providing money for the arts.”

The idea for the agency was born of a desire to find a stable source of money for the arts that would not drain the city’s general fund, Hornbuckle said.

“We found that the requests for funding from arts organizations have increased in dollars faster than we are able to increase the donations from the city,” she said. Another important consideration, she said, is establishing an agency that can handle the ever-increasing number of funding requests.

The city now subsidizes arts organizations with money from its general fund generated through a 6% transient occupancy tax, also known as a hotel bed tax. The city awarded a total of $175,000 to 11 arts groups and events last year.

Monies from a transient occupancy tax, however, are subject to state spending restrictions, and they are also used for other city expenditures. The proposed agency would oversee money generated through a 6% visitor-service fee, which has not been established, that would be earmarked exclusively for culture and tourism, city officials said.

The City Council is scheduled to vote Aug. 21 on a proposal to eliminate the hotel bed tax in favor of the the visitor service fee.

The service fee would be charged to hotel and motel occupants and would give them benefits such as discounts on tickets to Orange County Performing Arts Center events and other activities. It is believed that the discounts would help hotels and motels attract patrons and help generally in promoting tourism in Costa Mesa.

City officials “did decide (that Costa Mesa) be called the ‘City of the Arts,’ and I think this shows a will to take that responsibility on in a more serious fashion,” Martin Weil, former managing director of Opera Pacific, said of the proposed agency. Weil said he will attend Monday’s council meeting.

Ed Fawcett, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce hotel and lodging committee, was not immediately available for comment.

According to preliminary guidelines for the proposed agency from the draft of its articles of incorporation and bylaws, it would:

-- “Provide continuous, stable funding for activities which mutually benefit the hotel-motel industry and the city of Costa Mesa.

-- “Establish a financial base for supporting events and activities which can be marketed by the hotel-motel industry and other elements of the business community.

-- “Secure preferential services for the area visitor to cultural and special events and activities.”

The service fee, if established, is expected to generate the same amount of money that the hotel bed tax has raised, said Ann Gyben, assistant city manager.

The members of the agency must be Costa Mesa residents, and they may be appointed at the meeting Monday night. Several other matters revolving around the creation of the agency have yet to be determined, Hornbuckle said. One is the fate of the city’s 10-member volunteer cultural arts committee, the body that now recommends grant recipients to the City Council. Another is whether arts organization officials will be appointed to the agency’s board of directors. The cultural arts committee is made up of people outside the arts field.

Recipients of this year’s city arts grants will be announced at the Monday council meeting, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber