Staffers Irate Over Possible Layoffs of 3 Scientists at La Brea Tar Pits

Staffers at the La Brea tar pits, one of Los Angeles’ most popular tourist attractions, are so glum that they are calling the annual Christmas party the Christmas wake.

Two weeks ago, three of the four members of the science staff at the George C. Page Museum at the tar pits learned that they are likely to be laid off Jan. 15 if the County Board of Supervisors approves a reduced budget for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

The Natural History Museum, of which the Page Museum is a satellite, has been told by the board to cut its budget by $2.175 million, the equivalent of 42 staff positions, as part of a countywide reduction in spending.

Three science staff members at La Brea were told by John Harris, chief curator of the Natural History Museum’s earth sciences division, that they were on the list of positions most likely to be eliminated. The revelation has alarmed supporters of the tar pits and its Page Museum, who say that such a severe staff reduction would bring scientific work at the world-famous site to a virtual standstill.

Located in the middle of the asphalt deposits of Hancock Park, the museum contains one of the most important collections of Ice Age fossils in the world, including the remains of extinct saber-toothed cats, mastodons and other animals that were trapped in the tar pits beginning 40,000 years ago.

No one has yet received written notification of pending layoffs, but friends of the tar pits fear that the Page Museum’s science program is on the verge of extinction.

“No one person can do what these four people have been doing,” said Ted Connors, a museum volunteer who is spearheading a Save-the-Page campaign, referring to the single science staff member--the collection manager--who would remain if the cuts are made.

Connors, who has sent more than 300 letters on the museum’s behalf to public officials and potential benefactors, said the cuts threaten to turn the museum from a working research facility into a collection of static exhibits.

He said the cuts would eliminate such popular museum programs as the annual summer excavation of Pit 91, where the staff and volunteers disinter tar-soaked bones while the public watches from a ground-level observation station. And visitors would no longer be able to watch volunteers and staffers working with fossils in the museum’s fishbowl laboratory. One of the staffers who may be laid off directs the work of more than 50 volunteers who clean bones and do other paleontological chores at the museum.

Connors said he thinks the layoffs would end most research involving the fossil collection. The irony, he said, is that the cuts would come just as scientific interest in the La Brea collection is intensifying internationally as a result of breakthroughs in analyzing genetic material preserved in the bones of extinct animals found in the tar pits.

Natural History Museum Director Craig C. Black said he believes cuts “are inevitable,” given the county’s fiscal problems. But he said that the Page would not be hit any harder than other museum operations.

Black also said he did not believe the proposed reduction in Page Museum staffers would destroy the facility’s science program. If the laboratory supervisor position is eliminated by the Board of Supervisors, Black said, he will attempt to get funding for the position from the private Natural History Museum Foundation, which would allow the volunteer program to continue.

The La Brea fossil collection “will always be open and available,” Black said.

George T. Jefferson, 50, the head of the science department at Page, is one staff member facing the prospect of being laid off. “The thing that was hardest to do was to try to explain to my daughter, who is 8, why I wouldn’t be working at the museum,” he said. “The second-hardest thing was to figure out what the hell I’m going to do next.”

Jefferson has worked at the museum since its inception in 1977. He is involved in several research projects, including a population study of the extinct American lion.

He is also part of a national team, funded by the National Science Foundation, that is compiling data on the large Ice Age animals that disappeared.

Jefferson said he has been calling everyone he knows but has not been able to find another position. “The job market is grim simply because all the other institutions around the country have the same economic problems,” said Jefferson, who makes $48,000 a year.

The three science staff members facing layoffs are paid with county funds. In Connors’ pitch to save the staff, he pointed out that the cuts would save $100,000 a year in salaries at the cost of downgrading one of Los Angeles’ top tourist attractions as well as a major scientific resource.

Asking not to be identified, several Page staffers said they think they have been targeted because the Page is regarded as a stepchild by the administration of the Natural History Museum, even though the satellite facility usually attracts more paying visitors annually than the main museum in Exposition Park.

Staffers also expressed indignation that modestly paid Page staff members face layoffs when Black and other top museum administrators earn big salaries supplemented by the private Museum Foundation.

Black earns $90,000 a year from the county, and he said he receives roughly the same amount from the Natural History Museum Foundation. His foundation perks include use of an $850,000 house in Hancock Park and a Lexus automobile.

The disparity between his compensation and that of the staffers slated for layoffs “does give me a twinge occasionally,” Black said. But he said that his pay is comparable to that of other heads of major museums, universities and similar institutions.

As word of the possible layoffs filtered through paleontological circles, scientists reacted with indignation.

The director of the new National Dinosaur Museum in Australia recently sent a disbelieving fax to staffers at the Page: “What’s wrong with the administrators?” he asked. “Surely they must realize the value to science of what is surely the most spectacular Pleistocene deposit of all.”