Committee Urges Arts Council, County Funding : Arts: Panel says Orange County is in need of a ‘comprehensive central resource’ for a booming industry.

A countywide arts service organization should be established by July 1 with a budget of $286,500, nearly half of which should come from county government, according to recommendations being made public today by an ad hoc committee of local arts officials. The recommendations have been submitted to the County Board of Supervisors.

“In spite of the massive growth in Orange County arts organizations during the later 1980s, there exists today no comprehensive central resource for a booming arts industry,” reports the 27-member Committee to Form an Orange County Arts Council. “The time is right . . . to develop a visionary arts program that will benefit all segments of the population.”

Committee members say their proposals are based largely on feedback received over the past nine months during “town meetings” with arts professionals and community leaders. July 1 was proposed as the start-up date “in response to the growing urgency felt by the arts community and to capitalize on the growing momentum” committee members claim to have created during the past year.

The proposals call for a nonprofit, public agency that would:

* Develop--in ways to be determined by the agency--”substantially increased and stable financial support for the arts and arts education.”

* Engage in “arts advocacy,” lobbying of the public and private sectors to promote the arts.

* Draft, with significant input from the local community, a “cultural plan” for the 1990s “dedicated to enhancing the quality, diversity and accessibility of the arts in Orange County.”

* “Seek out and develop the multicultural contributions of the county’s diverse communities.”

* Foster a “unified voice for the arts” and greater communication within the arts community and with the public.

* Offer technical services.

Furthermore, the committee recommended that the agency be designated by the supervisors as a “state-local partner” with the California Arts Council, which would enable the agency to receive state and federal funds “not otherwise available to individual arts organizations.”

The 1988 dissolution of the Orange County Arts Alliance left the county as one of only two in California without a state-local partner and without a local arts agency.

First-year funding for the proposed agency would come from the state and federal government, and hoped-for voluntary membership revenues (tentatively ranging from $50 per individual to an unlimited amount for large organizations) and other private donations. About 45% ($125,000) of the initial budget would be supplied “in cash and/or in-kind services” by the county.

The initial $285,200 includes $103,500 for three staff positions (an executive director would earn $55,000); $81,000 for such overhead as office rent; $26,500 for an economic impact study of the arts, and $36,700 in start-up costs for such items as office equipment.

Another $37,500--including $30,000 for a consultant--has been proposed to come up with the “cultural plan.”

No budgets for ensuing years are included in the recommendations, but they do state that “as programs and services expand, it is anticipated that staff will need to be increased commensurately.”

Committee director Martin Weil said Monday that the proposed agency would succeed where the defunct alliance failed--by securing broad-based community leadership, including large and small groups, multicultural organizations and a range of others, “so we are not perceived as a self-serving entity.” He also argued that county support would be key: The much-troubled alliance, which dissolved for several reasons, received no county funds.