Campaign Finds Backers in O.C.

Even though Orange County is one of the largest Republican strongholds in the nation, leaders of arts groups here say they do not fear asking their supporters to go to bat on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts.

No local arts administrators contacted this week had begun efforts to take part in a national call-in campaign to “advocate for federal funding for the arts and humanities.”

Callers to the Cultural Advocacy Campaign Hot Line--(800) 651-1575--pay $9.50 to have three pro-NEA telegrams hand-delivered the following day to their congressional representative and two senators.

Some county arts leaders hadn’t heard of the campaign, created by Washington’s National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies in concert with 57 national arts and humanities organizations.

But all those interviewed said that they have no fear that they would alienate their supporters, many of them Republicans, with a plea to use the 800 number.

“Maybe I’m a Pollyanna, but I don’t think there are many supporters of Pacific Symphony who would like to see the NEA abolished,” said Louis G. Spisto, the Santa Ana-based orchestra’s executive director.

“I think that most of the individuals who support the orchestra believe that private funding is of far greater importance than public funding, and we agree with that,” Spisto said.

This year, the orchestra has received grants from the NEA ($40,000), the California Arts Council ($60,000) and the city of Santa Ana ($120,000 in cash and technical assistance). Public money represents less than 2% of the orchestra’s $6 million budget, he said.

“But it’s a critical 2%,” Spisto said. “It supports project areas that are important in terms of outreach and education, and it stimulates additional giving” because most state and federal grants must be matched. “And it is a national seal of approval that what we are doing is important and valuable and is seen as such. . . .

“In my view,” he added, “supporting the NEA’s existence shouldn’t be about whether one is politically conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican.”

Spisto said that next week he will suggest a board vote on creating program flyers alerting patrons to the 800-number campaign. The orchestra has used such pro-NEA inserts in the past at concerts at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. (Tom Tomlinson, executive director of the privately funded center in Costa Mesa, said the center “acknowledges the role the NEA” plays in development of the nation’s cultural identity but declined to comment on whether the center, its board or staff might use the 800 number.)

Michael Botwinick, director of Newport Harbor Art Museum, agreed.

“For a very long time, private arts institutions like ours have have often relied for direction and financial support on people who would describe themselves as economically and politically conservative,” Botwinick said, “yet these people have been among the biggest supporters of the kind of leverage role the NEA (money) plays.”

The museum, which has received several NEA grants, has not applied for any for the past two grant cycles, Botwinick said, because the museum hasn’t scheduled a project with the minimum 18 to 20 months lead time necessary to apply.

Botwinick, who had not heard of the NALAA campaign, said he would make the 800 number available to board members, supporters and patrons and urge them to use it.

“I don’t think this (campaign) will face a backlash from supporters or their boards,” he said, echoing statements by administrators at the Fullerton Museum Center and South Coast Repertory.

The Fullerton center doesn’t receive NEA grants but annually presents exhibits from other NEA-supported institutions.

“I have not talked to our board members” about the lobbying effort, said the center’s director, Joe Felz. But “I would take an educated guess that they will (support the campaign) because they have a track record of supporting the NEA and federal funding.”

SCR, which has received about $100,000 in NEA grants annually for the past two years and has publicly promoted the agency for at least five years, will continue to do so, although a decision on how to participate in the campaign hasn’t been made.

“We will continue to promote the many positive programs of the NEA and their benefits for our community,” said producing artistic director David Emmes.

Laguna Art Museum probably won’t be recommending that its supporters dial the 800 number because the museum’s board has already undertaken a pro-NEA letter-writing campaign, said interim director Susan M. Anderson. For the 1995-96 fiscal year, the museum has received three NEA grants totaling $150,000 for three different exhibitions.

A draft of Laguna’s letter to members of Congress recommended for trustees’ use expresses opposition to proposed NEA budget cuts and to the “privatizing” of the NEA favored by new House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

“As a business/civic leader in Orange County and trustee” for the Laguna Art Museum, the draft states, “I can tell you that in these uncertain economic times, privatized funding for the arts will not be able to compensate for the proposed federal cuts.”