2 L.A. Museums Threatened With Closure in June : Art: The California Museum of Science and Industry and the California Afro-American Museum may shut down if the state fails to find funding before a June 15 deadline.

The California Museum of Science and Industry and the California Afro-American Museum are threatened with a June 30 closure if the state fails to find funding for the museums before a June 15 deadline.

Although the museums have the support of Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Assembly, a Senate subcommittee that deals with parks and other recreational facilities has voted to delete the California Museum of Science and Industry from its list of facilities to receive funding in 1993-94. The Afro-American Museum’s budget, which totaled $950,000 in 1993-94, is part of the science museum’s appropriation. Together the museums received $6.2 million in the 1992-93 fiscal year, according to State Sen. Diane Watson, who is on the Senate subcommittee.

Unless the full state Senate votes to restore funding for the museums on June 15, they will be forced to close.

“The best we could hope for is that the state senators who have supported the museum in the past, such as Diane Watson and Teresa Hughes, as well as the Assembly side, will do the kind of political negotiations and wheeling and dealing that will help us,” said Rick Moss, interim director of the California Afro-American Museum, the largest black museum in the country. “Beyond that, there’s not much we can do.”

Both museums are located at Exposition Park, which borders on the South-Central Los Angeles area, and both serve, in part, as community centers.

“I think sometimes people perceive a museum as a less-than-critical service,” said Jeffrey Rudolph, executive director of the Museum of Science and Industry. “We often have a hard time conveying to people what we truly are, which is a science education institution, a critical part of motivating kids . . . and we are in the middle of the community that is most in need.”

“What we are doing now is fighting to find some dollars to restore (funding) to the budget, although probably not at the same level. Otherwise, the museums will close,” Watson said.

The California State Employees Assn., whose members staff the museums as janitors, clerical workers, tour guides and exhibit installers, have organized an informational demonstration/rally for 11 a.m. today in front of the museums. The group is also urging the public to write members of the state budget and fiscal review committee protesting the proposed de-funding of the museums.

“The mood of the Legislature is very iffy at this point; I think everything is on the table,” said Dana Gorba-Leon, a labor relations representative of the California State Employees Assn. “The state is looking to cut in as many places as possible, and doesn’t plan to fund any agencies that don’t have a ‘statewide impact.’ In this case, they are being somewhat short-sighted in seeing how many children the museums service overall. . . . It’s what we call down here the ‘Sacramento mentality.’ ”

The California Afro-American Museum, which suffered a 35% budget cut last year, was thrown into turmoil in early February when the institution’s board of directors fired director Terrie S. Rouse, 40, the latest in the succession of seven full-time or interim directors the museum has had since it was founded in 1977. The museum has been in its current location since 1984.

A closure would affect several projects that the Afro-American museum had planned in conjunction with the 1993 Los Angeles Festival, which begins Aug. 20 and focuses on African, African-American and Middle Eastern arts and culture. “It would put a crimp in their (the festival’s) plans, and it definitely puts a crimp in ours,” Moss said.