Museum Activists Seek Role in Vote

A group fighting the planned Newport Harbor-Laguna Art Museum merger wants to help oversee the counting of the vote that could make or break the merger.

Motivated Museum Members, which also has launched efforts to recall the Laguna museum’s trustees, wants one representative from the museum, one from its group and one from Save Laguna Art Museum to monitor the tallying of ballots, which are due Wednesday.

Laguna museum members, who have approved the merger in principle, are voting on museum bylaw and charter changes necessary to implement the merger. Motivated Museum Members attorney Belinda Blacketer said Friday that a supervised count “would be more on the up-and-up,” but she added trustees are not bound to comply with the group’s request.

Laguna museum President Gilbert LeVasseur said the museum’s attorney will consider the request. An independent firm, which LeVasseur declined to name, is handling the mail-in ballots, he said. Laguna museum trustees have not set a date for a recall vote, LeVasseur said. The museum’s bylaws require trustees to set the date by Friday.