Museum Merger Was No Success

* James V. Selna’s Nov. 29 letter put a spin on a very sordid story that would gain praise from the experts of this art in Washington.

Selna claims to be “correcting” what much of Orange County and most of the art world know about the unwanted “merger” of the Laguna Art Museum and the nearly bankrupt Newport Harbor Art Museum, of which he was president.

It is true the legal merger did go through. However, this merger of the two museums was planned in secret and involved misinformation, dubious vote counting and vote buying. All of this came out in the discovery process when the community of Laguna Beach took the Orange County Museum of Art to court to reverse the merger.

As a result of this lawsuit and the efforts of the Laguna Heritage group, OCMA agreed to give back the land, the building and other assets, the name and half of Laguna’s endowment. They also agreed to return half of the proceeds from the sale of some art and to put the 3,900-piece Laguna art collection into a trust where the Laguna Art Museum and OCMA share equal ownership.

This was formally settled seven months after the merger. It takes a keen imagination to call that a successful marriage. If it looks like a divorce, and sounds like a divorce, only an embarrassed partner would ever call it otherwise. The Times article was right to call it a “failed merger.”

JOHN A. BING

Laguna Beach