Bureaucracy, American Style : Cameroonians Trying to Set Up Arts Fair Get Lesson in Red Tape

It should have been a nice pastoral fair in the city, an art exhibition under the shade of Leimert Park, a cultural exchange between the people of Cameroon and the residents of Los Angeles.

Americans would learn about art from the central African country on the eve of its soccer team’s participation in the World Cup. And more than 100 Cameroonians--artists, performers, business people, and organizers--would learn about the fashions and lifestyles of Angelenos.

They got a lesson all right--in politics, bureaucracy and business, American style.

Although Cameroonian artists and performers finally found a spot at the Ruby Counts Caring Center, they first had to jump through bureaucratic hoops.

No sooner had they literally pitched their tents in Leimert Park when they were told Friday--the day the exhibition should have started--to take them down. Never mind that they had already had a charmingly informal news conference that very afternoon.

“When I saw this place, I fell in love with it,” said Manga Doualla-Bell, one of the organizers as well as an architect and grandson of one of the last kings of Cameroon.

But passion wasn’t enough. They needed permits.

“As of Friday afternoon, they hadn’t pulled the appropriate permits for street closures,” said Carolyn Webb de Macias, chief of staff for City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “When you do something in Leimert Park, generally one or more of the streets get closed off.”

But that wasn’t all, she said. “They hadn’t gone to Recreation and Parks to use the park. And they hadn’t gone to the Fire Department for permits to pitch the tents.”

Webb de Macias said that Ridley-Thomas, councilman for that area, tried to help at the last minute. “On Friday we were hastily trying to help them by putting in a motion which would have allowed the various departments to get busy and do something at least for the weekend,” she said.

Not so, insisted an Angeleno who has been hectically trying to help the Cameroonians for the last couple of months. According to the organizer, the Cameroonians had investigated permits and were waiting to get a waiver of all the fees--which this source said would have amounted to a staggering $1,200 a day.

“We had applied two months ago to Mark Ridley-Thomas’ office to waive all those permits. We had been told and told and told that this was pending, pending, pending,” said the organizer, who asked not to be named.

Webb de Macias responded: “We were never asked to waive the fees.” But, she added, she suggested putting a fee waiver in Friday’s motion, a common practice with nonprofit groups.

The Cameroonians had already dealt with the merchants, whom Webb de Macias said often have misgivings about events that close off streets coursing with shoppers and browsers through Leimert Park Village.

But Jimmy Dodson, the new president of the Leimert Park Merchants Assn., strongly insists that the merchants were agreeable.

“In no way did we oppose the concept,” said Dodson, owner of a yogurt shop and deli called Banjoes. In fact, Dodson contends, merchants were intrigued by the Cameroonians’ initial ambitious proposal to set up an African pavilion, a tall structure complete with a palm-frond thatched roof, in the middle of an intersection.

“We’re very disappointed that that pavilion is not sitting at the moment in the middle of 43rd Place and Degnan,” he said.

Dodson admitted the merchants had some initial reluctance to approve the plan in such a brief periode--it was brought to them in early May--but said they approved a scaled-down version of the pavilion. When it turned out the Cameroonians couldn’t get the materials they needed to construct an elaborate village but wanted to set up a tented exhibition instead, the merchants nixed the idea for the middle of the intersection.

“When they wanted to go to event tents, we were no longer willing to let them block our streets,” Dodson said. “A mere tent was a letdown after what we saw billed as a world-class structure. It wouldn’t bring the same kind of business as a pavilion.”

When the Cameroonians settled on Leimert Park, the merchants did not object. “There are a couple of things we pointed out to them--they couldn’t sell in the park,” Dodson said. “We are very sorry that it didn’t work out.”

Surmised businesswoman Phyllis Moats, who tried to intervene between the Cameroonians and the city, “I think there was a cultural thing--they did not understand the politics . . . Even though it’s a public park, it’s still run by the city and you have to ask permission to use it.”

For a while, all the Cameroonians could do was wait. They had been staying at USC dormitories and eating breakfast and dinner at a Crenshaw restaurant, the Hereafter, which has also served as their unofficial headquarters.

They had already dealt with minor setbacks. In an attempt to re-create the cuisine of Cameroon for visitors, they had brought with them foot-long cassava sticks wrapped in dried banana leaves. But all their fresh food products did not make it through customs. They simply determined to do without. After all, the promotional group that organized this journey is called Jemea, a word from the Douala language that means, appropriately enough, determination.

Finally, Emmett Cash, a Los Angeles-based international consultant, managed to secure a new venue--the tree-lined parking lot of the Ruby Counts Caring Center at 3831 Stocker St. On Wednesday, Cameroonians were setting up the exhibition. The fair is scheduled from noon to 10 p.m. today through Sunday night. Shows are to be held at 7 and 9 each night. Admission is $2 and children under 13 get in free.

Cash said he got involved to show off the spirit of Los Angeles. “We don’t have guests come to this city without trying to facilitate them.”