Art Museums Merge as Foes Head to Court

As the merger of the Newport Harbor and Laguna art museums became official Tuesday, opponents announced their plan to go to court today to block the deal.

Trustees who celebrated the new countywide art museum at a party Tuesday evening had learned just hours earlier of opponents’ plan to ask a Santa Ana Superior Court judge to halt the merger.

Motivated Museum Members, which wants the Laguna Art Museum to remain autonomous, hopes to stall the merger at least until Aug. 5, said the group’s attorney, Belinda Blacketer. That’s when museum members vote whether to recall Laguna trustees and reverse the merger.

The nine-month merger effort ended when the secretary of state’s office on Tuesday received all necessary documents.

“It’s done,” said Charles D. Martin, president of the newly created Orange County Museum of Art.

Opponents contend, among other things, that the Laguna museum violated voting laws governing nonprofit organizations. Its trustees gave members “false and misleading” information, Blacketer said. Members voted twice to ratify the merger.

Opponents ultimately hope to kill the merger, she said, “or at least get [more] information to the members [before the Aug. 5 vote] so they have a balanced viewpoint of what the merger means.”

Trustees say the merger cannot be undone.

Attorney Shelley M. Liberto, a Laguna trustee handling the suit for the museum, said Monday that the museum has broken no laws and that there is “no legal precedent for--quote, unquote--reversing a merger.”

Liberto described as “silly” Blacketer’s allegations, including one that the new Orange County Museum of Art’s bylaws include a provision that they can never be changed.

“That would be illegal,” Liberto said, “and that sort of statement is typical of the level of analysis we’ve been getting from Motivated Museum Members.”

He said opponents have resorted to “cutthroat” tactics, including the alteration of a check for $50 made out to the Laguna Art Museum for a fund-raiser presented by Motivated Museum Members. Someone wrote “save the” in front of “Laguna Art Museum” and wrote the group’s name on the check, which was deposited into the group’s account.

Vern Spitaleri, the group’s president, wrote the museum an apology and hand-delivered a $50 check.

The merger effort, fueled by trustees’ assertions that the Laguna museum risked insolvency without consolidation, has faced fierce opposition from the start. Protests by another group, now defunct, resulted in an 80-year contract ensuring the continued operation of the Laguna museum as a branch of the new museum, which initially will operate out of an expanded Newport Harbor museum near Fashion Island. The main museum may one day move to a larger site.