Meeting on Arts Center Planned

Federal and city officials will hold a public meeting Tuesday regarding a proposed cultural center in the Sepulveda Basin.

The meeting will give residents a chance to voice complaints or support for the much-debated project. A number of environmental and community groups, including the Sierra Club, have opposed construction in the basin’s rolling parklands.

Perhaps the most important issue in this instance concerns alternative sites. The Sierra Club has argued that the cultural center should be built in an urban setting such as the Cal State Northridge campus or along Ventura Boulevard. Officials said they hope to hear other site suggestions.

All such comments will be included in state and federal environmental reports that will be used to determine the cultural center’s future. The project is subject to approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the flood-control basin, and the city of Los Angeles, which leases the land.

“I want to get all the concerns and controversy on the table,” said John Westermeier, vice president of the Chambers Group, a consulting firm hired to prepare the environmental reports. “It doesn’t do us any good to do a report in a vacuum and then have the problems hit us later.”

A private group called the Cultural Foundation has been working for nine years to raise money for Arts Park L.A., an envisioned $70-million complex, and wants to sublease 60 acres of basin land. The arts center would include theaters, workshops and exhibit spaces. Foundation officials hope that Arts Park would lure world-class orchestras and ballet companies to the San Fernando Valley.

In a recent Times poll, 61% of the Valley residents who responded were in favor of Arts Park. But poll results also showed that the community is not eager to have the complex built in the basin.

The meeting will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center, 6337 Balboa Blvd., Encino. Comments also can be sent to Sheila Murphy, Environmental Resources Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 300 N. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, 90012-2325.