Pageant of Masters Takes Major Step Southward

A divisive plan to move the venerable Pageant of the Masters art celebration from its longtime home in Laguna Beach “crossed the Rubicon” this week as pageant directors signed a tentative lease agreement with officials in nearby San Clemente.

But even as pageant officials lauded Tuesday’s signing as a significant development in the 68-year-old event’s drive to expand, critics insisted that the agreement will only fuel efforts to recall its embattled board of directors.

On Wednesday evening, about 50 pageant fans gathered for a candlelight protest at the festival’s current home along winding Laguna Canyon Road. Some carried signs reading “Save the Festival” and “Hey, San Clemente, start your own festival.”

Organizers predicted the directors soon will be ousted. That followed on the heels of a court decision Wednesday in which an Orange County Superior Court judge awarded $88,000 in attorney fees to art festival exhibitors who went to court to get a recall vote.

“What they’re doing is just incredibly arrogant. It’s brazen,” said Bruce Rasner, a lawyer who is president of the Committee to Keep the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach. “I’m actually very pleased by it. Now our recall will succeed. . . . And let me tell you, a new board will rescind that agreement.”

The pageant, a quirky spectacle in which performers portray famous works of art, annually attracts almost a quarter of a million visitors who spend about $6 million on restaurants, parking and trinkets at the seaside resort.

The lease agreement the board unanimously approved is not legally binding, officials said. However, it does solidify the terms of a future deal and enables officials in San Clemente to begin work on environmental impact reports and architectural drawings for a pageant site. It also renews a pledge by the board to negotiate exclusively with San Clemente.

“In a manner of speaking, we’ve crossed the Rubicon,” said Stephen Thames, the festival’s general counsel. “It’s like an engagement.”

Sherri Butterfield, president of the pageant board, agreed. “This is a significant step forward in the evolution of the pageant,” Butterfield said. “I feel really good we’ve finally made a decision. We’ve waited longer than we should have.”

Reaction to the news was sharply divided between officials in San Clemente and Laguna Beach.

“We are very pleased at this point,” said David Lund, director of economic development in San Clemente. “We will continue to work closely with the board.”

In Laguna Beach, officials promised that the battle will continue.

“They want a commercial enterprise, and we can’t accommodate that,” Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said of the pageant’s board. “If the recall is successful, no doubt the festival will stay here. If it’s not, we’re looking at various types of litigation to retain it.”

Laguna Beach Mayor Kathleen Blackburn said she was “appalled.” “The festival and pageant belong in Laguna Beach, not San Clemente,” she said. “It’s cultural theft.”

Pageant board members say the event and accompanying Festival of Arts must be moved because the current location at the city-owned Irvine Bowl Park is in need of repair and because officials in Laguna Beach have refused to lower the rent.

No longer just a local social and cultural event, Butterfield and others said, the summer event is internationally known and must expand on its mandate to promote the arts through grants and scholarships countywide. Instead of distributing roughly $75,000 in such largess each year, directors say, moving to San Clemente would enable them to distribute as much as $2 million a year.

Critics counter that the beloved pageant has been hijacked by a rogue board and that most of the pageant’s supporters and participants do not want to move. Rasner said that, though the board has nine seats, the decision was made by only five people. The other four members have resigned.

“This is virtually half a board making this decision and on the eve of a recall vote,” Rasner said.

The board has not yet sent out recall ballots but has been given a Sept. 22 deadline to do so.

Festival exhibitors set in motion the recall campaign in April when the board began negotiating with San Clemente. The vote will involve 2,700 members.

The festival board said it could not agree on a new lease arrangement with Laguna Beach, which charged the organization $585,000 in rent last year. The festival’s current lease with Laguna Beach expires September 2001.

In June, the San Clemente City Council offered the festival a lease for a 20-acre site that could be ready by May 2003. Annual rent would begin at $1 and increase to at least $150,000 by 2014.