Grove Grant Won’t Avert Chapter 11

Despite the cancellation of its 1993 outdoor summer season, GroveShakespeare received a vote of confidence from the City Council even as the last remnants of the Grove’s board of trustees decided to seek protection from creditors under federal bankruptcy laws.

At the same time, a dissenting council member has charged that the theater company “mishandled” funds awarded by the city in April. A Grove board member disputed the amount cited but conceded that some city money has been used for purposes other than that for which it was granted.

The council on a 3-2 majority vote Tuesday night awarded the foundering theater company $11,000 in rescue funds--double the amount that had been recommended by the city’s arts commission before the season cancellation.

In the process, the council deprived the Orange County Symphony of Garden Grove of a $5,500 grant that also had been recommended by the arts commission.

Marge Swenson, a city resident active in the arts and a founding member of the Village Green Arts Alliance that helped establish the Grove 15 years ago, said she was deeply upset by the council’s action.

“This is an outrage,” she said. “Shakespeare was for the people. What the council has done has nothing to do with the people. It was hoodwinked into thinking this theater can survive. It shouldn’t even be allowed to try. Somebody else ought to get the chances they’ve squandered.”

Mike Fenderson, deputy city manager, defended the council’s action. “It’s not unusual for the City Council to overturn a recommendation of the arts commission,” Fenderson said Wednesday. “The council thought: Here’s a group that really needs the money, and we ought to help it out.”

Voting to give the Grove money were Mayor Frank Kessler and council members Mark Leyes and Ho Chung. Dissenting were Bruce A. Broadwater and Robert F. Dinsen.

“I’m not opposed to Shakespeare or to improving the quality of life in this city,” Broadwater said Wednesday, defending his negative vote. “Shakespeare definitely improves our quality of life. But these clowns have never got a handle on their finances.”

Broadwater said the council gave the grant to the Grove “with no strings attached,” despite learning at a closed session that “the theater had mishandled $34,450” in city redevelopment agency funds awarded it in April for advertising purposes.

“They were supposed to pay a printer to print up their season brochures, but they didn’t pay him,” Broadwater said. “They still owe him $30,000, and they used those funds for other things. That’s a legal violation of what that money was earmarked for. I wouldn’t give them a nickel.”

Tom Moon, who has taken over the Grove board as acting president in the wake of recent resignations, said Wednesday that more than half the money earmarked for advertising had been spent “for other purposes. We did it because it was either that or just totally sink at that point.

“As I understand it,” he added, “we spent roughly $14,000 on brochures, phone marketing, postage, printing and so forth. The rest we have in a special account set aside. It’s an empty account. But when we get money, it will go into that.”

Moon also said the board “definitely has decided to file Chapter 11, so we can try to reorganize.”

He said some of the city’s latest grant would have to go to legal fees for court proceedings, if an attorney could not be found to represent the theater free of charge. “We think we’ve found someone who will do the work pro bono,” he added.

The rest of the city grant would go to other essential items such as liability insurance for the 550-seat Festival Amphitheatre and the 178-seat Gem Theatre, the city-owned facilities that the Grove occupies.

Moon also revised his estimate of the Grove’s total deficit upward from his earlier estimates of $200,000. “It’s probably closer to $250,000,” he said.

Meanwhile, another Grove board member, Brian Conley, resigned Tuesday, bringing the total number of board resignations this week to five.