County Museum to Be Pursued, Merger or Not

LAGUNA BEACH — With the increasingly controversial Newport Harbor/Laguna Art Museum merger still unresolved Wednesday, Newport Harbor board President James V. Selna said his museum “is going to the next step of a countywide museum with or without Laguna.”

Meanwhile, Laguna board President Gilbert LeVasseur, an architect of the merger talks, said that without the merger, he cannot guarantee that his museum will be able to meet its overhead, including payroll, after June.

The deadline for a crucial membership vote came and went Wednesday with no announcement whether the museums will join to become a higher-profile Orange County Museum of Art. According to Laguna Trustee David Emmes II, the leading proponent of the merger, the results will not be known before midday today or even Friday.

Emmes said his refusal to announce the result before all the ballots are counted--as he has in the past--does not necessarily indicate a close vote this time. Wednesday’s vote, he said, was more complicated because of hand-delivered ballots and faxes, and an auditor has to validate the ballots and verify that no one has voted twice. About 1,400 ballots were sent out.

The merger has already been approved by the boards of both museums. Last month, when it was approved--narrowly--by the Laguna museum membership, board members proclaimed it a done deal, noting that all they needed was further membership approval of seemingly minor, technical amendments and an anticipated approval from the state.

But Motivated Museum Members, an anti-merger group described last month by Emmes as “misinformed extremists,” has been stepping up its efforts to stop the merger by convincing people to reject the amendments, the subject of the current vote.

Selna said Wednesday that “we believe that the goal [of creating a countywide museum] could be accomplished more quickly with a merger,” but however the vote turns out, “we’re going forward.”

LeVasseur has said repeatedly that the Laguna museum risks insolvency without a merger.

In addition to trying to stop the merger, Motivated Museum Members is trying to recall the Laguna trustees the group claims have sold out the museum. The group has collected enough signatures on a petition to require a recall vote, set for Aug. 5.

“A substantial amount” of the $70,000 in trustee dues the museum normally would have received by now remains outstanding, LeVasseur said, because several trustees are wary of the recall attempt.

Those opposing the merger have said they don’t want Laguna Beach to lose its landmark downtown museum and have complained that the merger was discussed secretly by board members for months before the public was informed.

Motivated Museum Members President Vern Spitaleri further asserts that the Laguna museum alienated many locals by failing to display enough prewar art. “There was no balance whatsoever,” he said. Visitors “got tired of cutting-edge contemporary.”

Bonnie Brittain Hall, executive director of Arts Orange County, a countywide service agency, said Wednesday that if the merger does not go through, it is “not a signal that Orange County isn’t ready for something like an Orange County Museum of Art.”

The current merger attempt has been “very specifically tied to issues relevant to the institution and the city involved,” Hall said. “Knowing that they needed to have the membership’s approval, a lot more could have been done to help cultivate and bring the members along.”