New Mayor Takes Stage in Palmdale Arts Center Fight

Proponents of a new performing arts center in Palmdale have withstood numerous political and financial storms during nearly 10 years of fighting to keep their project alive.

But they are about to meet perhaps their biggest obstacle yet--the new mayor.

“I’m thinking that we have to go back and look at this whole project and figure out if we really have to go with a new building,” said Jim Ledford, a city councilman who was elected mayor April 14 on a managed-growth platform. His allies now make up a majority of the Palmdale City Council.

“No one argues that it would be nice to have a new state-of-the-art facility for performances by local groups, but I am not sure there are a whole lot of funds for that kind of thing right now,” he said, shortly before being sworn into his new post on Tuesday.

The council in 1990 pledged $4 million toward building a 400-seat theater on a six-acre lot donated by a local developer.

Also, the Antelope Valley Cultural Foundation--made up of local residents promoting a new theater for use by such groups as Palmdale Repertory Theatre and Desert Opera Theatre--pledged to raise $750,000.

But recent construction estimates put the cost of the facility at more than $7 million.

“I just don’t know where the new funds would come from,” Ledford said. “There are other priorities out there.”

David Milligan, executive director of the cultural foundation, remained optimistic that a building would still be approved.

“We will show that council that there is a lot of support for this project and that the funds can be raised,” he said.

The foundation plans to present its proposals at the May 14 council meeting.

Ledford said he was leaning toward returning to a mid-1980s plan of renovating the Maryott Auditorium, a 40-year-old former school building, for use as a performing arts center.

“We also have to look at the fact that we now have two new high schools here that have auditoriums that could be used,” he said.

Both Ledford and Milligan rejected the idea of Palmdale groups using a 750-seat theater that opened this year in the adjacent and often rival city of Lancaster.