Panel Prefers Private Body to Back Arts

Grass-roots efforts to form a countywide arts support organization moved forward this week when a committee of local arts officials agreed that the agency should be private, rather than an arm of county government.

The ad hoc, 27-member Committee to Form an Orange County Arts Council, which first proposed the agency, has been mulling the issue for several months. Private, nonprofit status would give the organization independence from county government while allowing it to seek private and government funds.

“The clear majority (of committee members) felt that a private agency is more likely to be more effective and more consistent with the way this community works,” said committee director Martin Weil after a meeting Monday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Historically, county arts support has been virtually nil. The Orange County Board of Supervisors never funded an Orange County Arts Alliance, the proposed agency’s predecessor, which dissolved in 1988. But private sector support has been comparatively strong. Construction of the $73.3-million Orange County Performing Arts Center was funded solely with private money, for instance.

Committee members, still refining an outline for the agency’s structure and goals, hope by early next month to submit a final draft to the county, which is conducting a study to reevaluate its own role in arts support.

Weil said he hopes that the outline, “a comprehensive statement as to what the arts community feels (are its) most critical and pressing needs,” will help county officials to determine their next step. The county study is to be completed by March 1.

Courtney Wiercioch, an aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who requested the county study, said the committee’s outline will serve as a resource. But she could not say whether it would have any great impact.

“There are a number of organizations in the county interested in the arts, and there is no single body that will have disproportional influence on the county study,” she said.

The committee also voted Monday to continue meeting through June, or until an arts support agency is established, Weil said. It will meet next after results of the county study are made public. Originally the committee was to have disbanded at the end of last month.