Performance Hall Fund Drive Reaches Midpoint

Despite early problems with fund raising, a Thousand Oaks group has reached the halfway mark in a drive to establish a $3-million endowment fund for a performing arts auditorium.

GTE California on Thursday handed Alliance for the Arts officials a $150,000 check, a gift that raises the total contributions to nearly $1.5 million.

“This is . . . a way to encourage others to support the alliance, which we think will make a major contribution to a need in the county,” said Jim Parrish, a spokesman for the Thousand Oaks-based telephone company.

GTE’s gift is the second-largest that the alliance has received since launching its fund-raising drive in June, 1990, said Dick Johnson, executive director of the alliance.

Money raised by the alliance, a nonprofit organization of business and civic leaders, has been earmarked for the Conejo Valley’s first and largest cultural arts auditorium, a 1,800-seat facility now under construction in Thousand Oaks.

Envisioned as the setting for theater and symphony productions, the auditorium is the centerpiece of the city’s $63.8-million civic arts complex. It includes a new city hall, a smaller 400-seat theater and a parking structure. It is expected to open by fall 1994.

Johnson said the group is relying primarily on private industry to bankroll the auditorium’s operations. About 50 donors so far have contributed to the alliance, including the Los Angeles-based developer Courtly Homes, which donated $250,000 in October.

Amgen, a biotechnology firm in the Westlake area of Thousand Oaks, donated $100,000 in December.

But gifts have flagged since then. Recently, industry cutbacks related to the recession have reduced the quantity and size of gifts from private companies, Johnson said.

“They’re moving along, but they’re going much slower,” he said.

Johnson would not reveal future fund-raising strategies, but he said the group plans to meet with city officials in Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village for financial backing. The alliance also plans to approach more businesses in the coming year.

“I’m not pessimistic about it at all,” he said.

But Councilwoman Elois Zeanah said she is worried that the city will have to subsidize the auditorium’s operations if the alliance fails to reach its goal.

She cited an advisory ballot measure approved by voters in 1984 that stipulated that a city-operated cultural center should be funded by a private endowment fund rather than from city dollars.

“The promise has been that the city would not have to subsidize it,” she said. “It’s their responsibility to fully fund the center.”

Councilman Frank Schillo said that even if the group does not raise the $3 million, the auditorium would still open on schedule. Ticket prices may be raised and some cultural activities may be curtailed to remain within the city’s annual budget for the auditorium, which is estimated at $596,000 to $1.3 million.

He blamed the alliance’s early fund-raising problems--an alliance director says the group raised less than $500,000 its first year--on negative publicity generated by a dissident group of Thousand Oaks residents. That group, which accused the city of wasting taxpayer money, has not been active in several months.

As a result of the negative publicity, business leaders were unwilling to get involved, said Stephen J. Rubenstein, executive director of the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce. But recently, he added, that attitude has changed.

“I was told directly by corporate leaders that they didn’t want to get involved one way or another,” he said. “They feel good about it now. The controversy’s gone, so corporations are more willing to contribute.”