GARDEN GROVE : Newly Elected Leyes Backs Arts Funding

Mark Leyes’ political ambitions began when he was a Rancho Alamitos High School student attending a 1975 Garden Grove Youth in Government Day program in which he was able to sit next to then-Mayor Bernard H. Adams at a City Council meeting.

“That was when I really got the bug,” said Leyes, who will be sworn in Dec. 3 after finishing first in a field of seven for two seats on the council in the Nov. 6 election. Leyes, a 32-year-old environmental impact analyst, will take the seat held by Raymond T. Littrell, who chose not to run for reelection.

It was Leyes’ second campaign for the council. He finished fourth in 1988.

“I feel really good,” Leyes said, reflecting on his victory. “I feel like the voters have accepted me. They’ve accepted the idea that I’ve got the experience and the ability to help solve the city’s problems, and they’ve accepted the idea that my solutions are worth trying.”

The message that voters sent in electing him may mean a new direction for Garden Grove, Leyes suggested. “It’s definitely a call for new leadership. Conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, people realize we can’t just have business as usual.”

One controversial issue likely to be rethought is the city’s support for the arts. The council majority of J. Tilman Williams, Robert F. Dinsen and Littrell agreed to phase out direct contributions to the Grove Shakespeare Festival and the Garden Grove Symphony, but that seems likely to change.

“Whatever money we invest in the arts comes back many fold,” Leyes said. “There’s an economic multiplier effect, where when someone comes to a play or a concert, they spend money in town.”

Not only will the new council majority of Mayor W.E. (Walt) Donovan, Francis L. Kessler and Leyes become “boosters” of the arts, but “financial support will come too,” Leyes said. Other changes in the city’s direction may be on tap as well.

“I think we need to take a look at the Village Green Master Plan, which calls for a third building,” Leyes said. “The city has built the indoor Gem Theatre and open-air Festival Amphitheatre in the downtown Village Green Park, and a third, larger enclosed facility seating around 500 was originally planned to complete the complex.”

Leyes added that he and Donovan are planning to participate in Rancho Santiago College’s 75th anniversary fund-raising drive and hope that it might lead to a resumption of the college’s involvement with the Grove Shakespeare Festival.

Other priorities, Leyes said, include “getting our redevelopment back on track. We may need to amend the redevelopment areas, take some out, put some in. We need to start using those resources (tax revenue raised by the Redevelopment Agency) for impacted city services, such as public safety and roads.”