Santa Ana OKs $1.2 Million for Bowers’ Funding

Citing the value of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art for education and enrichment in the community, the Santa Ana City Council on Monday voted to continue funding the facility at $1.2 million annually for the next five years.

“I think the museum is doing extremely well,” said Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr., who made the motion to continue the subsidy. “We should continue to work together.”

The only board dissent came from Councilman Ted R. Moreno. “I don’t think we’re getting the full story of what’s happening to the Bowers” in terms of financing, he said. He abstained from voting on the issue.

Others also raised questions about the museum’s funding. Resident Art Pedroza, longtime supporter of the Bowers, told the council: “I imagine that much of what the Bowers receives from the city is well-spent. However, I and many others would like to be absolutely sure of that. Accountability is crucial.”

Santa Ana and the Bowers signed an agreement in 1987 to reduce city funding of $1.5 million a year, and a private board was organized. The subsidy cut kicked in last year, and the museum was supposed to receive 10% less each year until the funding ends in 2007.

The subsidy is at least a third of the museum’s budget. The city’s staff had recommended that funding continue at the current level.

In a draft letter to City Manager David Ream, museum director Peter Keller offered a doomsday scenario if Santa Ana continues to reduce the subsidy. The financial distress in the draft was at odds with the healthy picture of the museum’s finances Bowers officials had given earlier.

The Feb. 3 letter, which was distributed to the museum’s board of governors but never sent to the city manager, said the Bowers faces “serious financial difficulties” and would suffer dramatic cutbacks in operations and staffing if Santa Ana continues to reduce its funding by 10% a year.

A second letter from Keller, faxed to Ream last month, made the same request but contained no details of the museum’s problems.

In the draft, Keller said the money problems began in 1998 when the $1.5-million subsidy was cut for the first time and a five-year capital fund-raising campaign ended. Between the two cutbacks, the museum has lost $510,000.

Since the agreement with the Bowers was signed, Santa Ana has given the museum $14 million and spent another $12 million on a 60,000-square-foot expansion and renovation. The city owns 40% of the 85,000-piece art collection, which concentrates on pre-Columbian, Native American, African and Oceanic objects.

Mayor Pulido said Bowers officials spoke with him about a year ago about changing the funding agreement and renewed discussions about five months ago.

At the April 5 council meeting, Moreno asked for an independent audit of the Bowers. According to the agreement between the museum and Santa Ana, the city may inspect the museum’s financial records, though it has never done so.

In a four-page letter sent to Friends of the Bowers this month, Lowell Martindale, chairman of the museum’s board, said the 1987 agreement was based on a museum with a $1.5-million annual budget as opposed to the current $3.5 million.

Martindale did not return calls from The Times seeking comment.

Until The Times obtained a copy of Keller’s draft letter, museum officials insisted publicly that the Bowers was in fine financial shape.

Keller told The Times in December, during an exhibit of treasures from the royal tombs of Ur, an ancient city-state near the Persian Gulf: “We are in probably the greatest cash-flow position in our lives.”

In early March, James Stathekis, who oversees the museum’s finances, said fiscal woes did not bring about a $2 rise in the admission price that month or the elimination of Thursday evening hours.