$32,000 Funding for Armenian Sister City in Jeopardy

As the sister city committee prepares for its biggest fund-raiser of the year--a gala concert Sunday at the Civic Arts Plaza--some at City Hall are considering doing away with the $32,000 the city contributes annually to the cultural exchange.

After a devastating earthquake struck Armenia seven years ago, local residents of Armenian descent launched a drive to help the thousands of victims and to create a cultural relationship between the cities of Thousand Oaks and Spitak--a community of 25,000 people 60 miles northwest of the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

“We promote understanding and goodwill,” said Michael Hagopian, who started the sister city relationship immediately after the disaster. “It might even promote some economic benefits through business one day.”

While the City Council agreed Tuesday to help promote the sister city relationship with radio forums and an informational display at City Hall, direct funding for the committee will not be discussed until January, when the council adopts its budget for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

This past summer, a citizens’ task force recommended in a 12-1 vote to do away with the $32,000 set aside to support Thousand Oaks’ lone sister city.

But members of the sister city committee say the city of Thousand Oaks could not possibly spend that much money on their efforts.

One municipal staff member is assigned to take notes at monthly committee meetings and to type the minutes. The costs for postage, copying and meeting-room space also are minimal, they say.

“It may be hollow bookkeeping, I don’t know,” Hagopian said. “We don’t get the money, that’s all I know. I don’t see how they can spend that much staff time. For $32,000 you could have a top-notch secretary working full time for a year.”

City Finance Director Robert Biery said the $32,000 figure represents payroll costs for staff support of the committee. But he and other officials declined to detail exactly how much staff time could be saved if the city withdraws its support of the sister city committee.

Mayor Jaime Zukowski said the amount is devised from a complex formula that is apparently flawed.

“This formula does not accurately reflect the contribution in staff time,” she said. “It was made to fit a formula. It’s a figure that does not translate into actual dollars.”

Nonetheless, committee members said, cultural exchanges will continue even without official city support.

“They never gave us any money in the first place, so I don’t think we’d be affected by it,” said Ray Garcia, a former council member who now chairs the sister city committee. “We would continue on our own and do our own things.”

Since 1989, the committee has raised more than $30,000 in private donations, including $11,000 from last year’s fund-raising concert. The annual event has become the committee’s single largest source of revenue. The money has been used to fund a 1992 trip to Thousand Oaks for Spitak’s mayor and business manager and to host a teen-age music student for a three-month visit to Thousand Oaks earlier this year.

The group also helped rebuild a 20-unit apartment building in Spitak after the December, 1988, earthquake.

“People over here don’t understand the devastation in that city and the poverty,” said Mervyn Kopp, a former planning commissioner who visited Spitak in 1992.

“Maybe we could save $32,000, but we’ve got to help some of the people if we’ve got the means to do it,” he said.

Judy St. John, a Thousand Oaks accountant who was the lone dissenter on the citizens’ panel that recommended the money be withdrawn, said the city can afford the expense.

“We are a city that is very wealthy and has a lot of resources,” she said. “They are a country that is underdeveloped and in need, and it seems like anything we can do to foster relationships helps.

“The amount of money that was allocated in the past was very minimal compared to our overall budget” of $57 million, she said.

Meanwhile, concert organizer Annabelle Lee Darakjian has not allowed the potential funding loss to disrupt plans for Sunday’s event, dubbed “Images of My Country” and featuring performances by Armenian-American pianists, a string quartet and other musicians of Armenian dissent.

“Last year we were sold out,” Darakjian said. “Hopefully, we will come close to that again this year.”

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FYI

The Thousand Oaks sister city committee on Sunday will present “Images of My Country,” an afternoon of performances by a variety of musicians. The event will begin at 2 p.m. in the Forum Theater at the Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for seniors and children. For more information, call (805) 449-2787.