O.C. ANALYSIS : Arts Officials Take Critics’ Election Victories in Stride

The arts couldn’t have been too high on the minds of voters who gave a comfortable victory Tuesday to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach), a key foe of federal arts funding whose district includes parts of Orange County.

Local arts officials, commenting on this and other races pertinent to their communities, were neither surprised nor devastated by Rohrabacher’s triumph, however.

“Of course I’m disappointed that some of the most repressive voices seem not to have been silenced by the recent election,” said Charles Desmarais, director of the Laguna Art Museum and president of the Committee for an Orange County Arts Council, a group working to establish a countywide arts service organization.

“On the other hand, I don’t think people are single-issue voters,” Desmarais said. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some people, who voted for people I wouldn’t have voted for, might still have been offended by certain of their actions.”

Joe Felz, director of the Fullerton Museum Center and a member of the Orange County Coalition for Freedom of Expression, an arts advocacy group, agreed that Rohrabacher’s success at the polls was a disappointment.

“But,” Felz added, “it wasn’t unexpected.”

The coalition--formed earlier this year in response to a nationwide controversy over the National Endowment for the Arts, which came under attack by Rohrabacher and other conservatives for funding what critics called obscene or sacrilegious artworks--also had targeted Costa Mesa Mayor Peter F. Buffa, who also won reelection Tuesday.

The NEA brouhaha trickled down to a local level in Costa Mesa in July when the City Council voted to forbid the use of city arts grants for “obscene matters” or for religious or political activity.

Donning masks of Buffa, coalition members said they believed the restrictions would stifle expression and “impose homogeneous cultural standards upon the entire community.”

But Felz said Wednesday that the guerrilla art demonstration wasn’t meant as an attack against Buffa as an individual. Rather, he said, Buffa was singled out as the city’s representative.

“Now,” Felz continued, “we’re just going to keep watching the City Council and looking at (how council members enforce) their grant restrictions, and what the new council makeup is like. Hopefully, we’ll work with them to look at their policies regarding the arts.”

A more upbeat response to the election results came from Barbara Hammerman, managing director of the Grove Shakespeare Festival. In September, the financially strapped troupe canceled the final production of its current season when the Garden Grove City Council refused to allocate emergency funds.

The season since has been reinstated with help from an anonymous donor and the Garden Grove Fire Fighters Assn., among others.

Raymond T. Littrell, the most vocal of the councilmen opposing the funds, did not run for reelection. Mayor W. E. (Walt) Donovan, who voted for the financial support, was reelected Tuesday and newcomer Mark Leyes won a council seat.

“The mayor has been supportive of us and the arts in general, so we welcome that election,” Hammerman said. “Mark, in his statements during his campaign, has been highly complimentary of the arts in Garden Grove, and was instrumental in getting $3,500 from the Fire Fighters Assn. during our recent crisis. So we’re encouraged.”