Arts Council Is Losing Momentum : Ventura: The gallery has been closed because its sponsor is in debt. The city says the nonprofit group performs a vital community service.

The Ventura Arts Council has closed the Momentum Gallery--one of the major art galleries in the city--because the debt-ridden organization cannot afford to keep it operating, officials said Tuesday.

Cindy Zimmerman, the council’s executive director, confirmed that the private, nonprofit organization has been in debt for at least eight months, but declined to say how much it owes. Board member Denis Snow said he thinks that the amount is less than $10,000.

The organization received about $96,000 last year from the city, said Sonia Tower, city cultural arts coordinator. The rest of its money--its annual budget is about $180,000--comes from donations and fund-raisers, officials said.

In exchange for the subsidy, the city relies on the council to hold workshops on various artistic media and provide fellowships to artists.

“How they moved the money around we don’t know, but we do know they did all the programs they said they would do,” Tower said. “They provide vital services to the community.”

Still, she said, the city is planning to conduct a routine audit of the organization soon.

The Ventura Arts Council has hired an accountant to straighten out its bookkeeping, Zimmerman said.

Last weekend, the Momentum Gallery in the Livery on Palm Street near Main Street closed its doors because the arts council could not afford to pay liability insurance, Zimmerman said. Snow said the insurance cost about $1,500 a year.

The Ventura Arts Council has owned and operated the gallery since 1987. The gallery was open six days a week, and the arts council hopes to reopen it at another location if someone can donate space for it, Snow said.

According to Zimmerman, the 11-year-old organization fell into debt gradually because of poor financial planning and hard economic times.

“Nobody stuffed their pockets here. We’ve fallen prey to economic times,” said Zimmerman, who blames low donations and overly optimistic projections for fund-raisers.

Zimmerman said that when she was hired eight months ago, she discovered that “there were large accounts unpayable.”

Snow said some artists have been late in getting paid for their work, partly because former executive director Laura Zucker had taken money earmarked for artist grants and put it in the general operating fund, he said.

“We still owe a couple of artists their money,” Snow said.

However, Zucker insisted that the organization was breaking even when she left in July.

“The council has never had a deficit situation,” Zucker said in an interview from her new job as executive director of the Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission.

Since Zimmerman joined the Ventura Arts Council, she and the 13-member board have been restructuring the organization and reducing expenses, she said.

Zimmerman said she and the board agreed that her $36,000-a-year job was too much for the council to maintain, so she will voluntarily leave next month. She said she plans to return to her family in San Diego.

Zimmerman said the public is partly to blame for the art council’s predicament: “If Joe Citizen of Ventura had written a $20 check to us, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”