SIMI VALLEY : City Approves Loan to Cultural Center

The Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center got a financial kick-start Monday in the form of a $138,500 loan from the city of Simi Valley.

The Simi Valley City Council unanimously approved the start-up loan to the Cultural Arts Center Foundation, which is transforming the Old Methodist Church into a 290-seat theater with an art gallery.

The foundation plans to spend $73,000 of the money on programming and operations by next June, $30,500 on fund-raising efforts and $35,000 on the grand-opening slated for next spring.

Republican activist Stephen R. Frank protested the loan. Instead, he told the council, the appropriation is nothing but “a taxpayer grant to the Cultural Arts Center” that is not even secured by a guarantor or threat of penalty for non-payment.

Councilwoman Judy Mikels dismissed Frank’s criticism as “a personal vendetta” against the arts center.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” Mikels said, “and it takes a professional to get the fund-raising organized and to teach them (the center’s organizers) how to do it.”

Meanwhile, construction workers are gutting and refitting the vacant church at 3050 Los Angeles Ave. into a theater complete with a stage and room for backdrops and lights, at a cost of $2.55 million.