Panel Urges Key Changes for Struggling Arts Center

After years of lagging attendance, the city’s Performing Arts Center should change its management structure to attract more events and patrons, a task force is recommending.

On Tuesday, the City Council will consider forming a nonprofit firm to take over control of the struggling facility from the city.

Under a nonprofit arrangement, the arts center could attract contributions and grants that the city cannot.

Oxnard Public Services Director Matthew Winegar said the task force, which will present its report at Tuesday’s council meeting, views the center’s management structure as the problem, not the managers themselves.

He said a more autonomous operator could more efficiently set fee schedules and rates, accept in-kind services and donations, and set goals and business plans.

Setting up a nonprofit operating company would also involve creating a board of directors. Winegar said such a panel, composed of community leaders and major users of the center, would have a greater interest in the center’s success.

The city would maintain some control over the center through City Council representation on the board.

Councilman Tom Holden, who has criticized the center’s management in the past, said he has seen the infusion of civic leadership reap benefits on Oxnard’s Economic Development Council.

“One of the ingredients for success in the EDC is that you have input from individuals who are in the business sector,” Holden said. “The same would take place in the Performing Arts Center.”

Holden said, however, he does not see the creation of a nonprofit management company as a cure-all for the center, which he said often operates more like a community center than an artistic venue.

“I don’t see how by declaring nonprofit status you’re going to immediately go to private revenues to support the Performing Arts Center,” he said. The center has suffered in recent years as attendance has dropped and the 30-year-old facility on Hobson Way has aged.

The problems prompted the City Council to order an audit, which flagged numerous money-losing practices, and to question the performance of longtime arts center manager Jack Lavin. Lavin could not be reached for comment on the task force’s report.

The task force of city officials and community members was set up to find ways to save the struggling center. Its report recommends continuing physical improvements to the center, at an estimated cost of $2 million.

But what is hurting the center is not just its buildings; its programming is also part of the problem, Winegar said. Trying to compete with the newer and larger Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza has not worked, either.

“Both Thousand Oaks and Oxnard put on the same productions,” Winegar said, “but clearly you have different demographics in the west county than you do in the east county.”

Developing a marketing plan for the Oxnard center would be one of the first tasks of the nonprofit management, he added. Better tailoring of events to its audience, particularly the city’s Latino population, should bring in larger crowds, Winegar said.

So the venue that has hosted the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Russian Ballet and Ronald Reagan may now be home to a mariachi festival and boxing, he said.

Having a nonprofit element in a public arts facility is a common model. Some centers have nonprofit managers, while others have foundations or other groups that raise funds for centers run by the government.

In Thousand Oaks, the Civic Arts Plaza is a city-owned facility staffed by city employees, but it does not receive city funding. In addition to ticket sales and rental fees, funds are raised by a nonprofit foundation and an alliance of arts patrons.

Establishing a nonprofit operator makes the most sense for fund-raising, said Tom Mitze, theater director for the Thousand Oaks center.

“Nobody voluntarily gives money to the city,” he said. “If you want to be able to raise money to support the arts, you first have to be able to guarantee the donors it won’t go someplace else.”

In addition to making it easier to raise money, creating a nonprofit around an arts center that is separate from the city “insulates it from politics,” Mitze said.

With a nonprofit group, the city remains “the owner and the operator, but it’s really a landlord,” Mitze said. “If there was city money involved, I’m sure there would be much more direction and input.”