Hopefuls on the Ballot

This, the leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County have been saying for months, is the quiet phase.

In their campaigns to raise up to $300 million each for new and improved buildings, both museums’ leaders said, they were looking to lock up major commitments with billionaire philanthropists like Eli Broad before taking their campaigns public.

But on Tuesday, when museum leaders and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors joined to unmask the first round of prospective donors, it wasn’t Broad, or any of the other usual philanthropic suspects. It’s the taxpayers of Los Angeles County, and instead of competing, the museums are working together.

Under a proposed $250-million bond issue that supervisors agreed to put on the Nov. 5 ballot, the county’s voters are being asked to make matching-fund contributions of up to $98 million to each museum, along with $54 million to a handful of other cultural projects around the county. The bonds would be paid for by boosts in property taxes.

The proposal cites “earthquake and fire safety improvements,” but the proposed projects also include new buildings, and the funds would play a key role in both museums’ plans to dramatically renovate or replace existing structures.

Andrea Rich, LACMA’s president and director, calls the bond proposal “an experiment in public policy” that holds the promise of bringing public and private investment together for broad benefit. But it’s also a surprise. In a January interview, Rich said all construction funds for the project would be raised from private sources.

“You can strangle me on that, but that’s what we were thinking in January,” she said Thursday.

Since January, Rich said, the two museums, whose buildings and collections are owned by the county, have polled citizens about their willingness to earmark public money for museum improvements. She said the results, which she declined to release in detail, showed strong support, especially for children’s programs.

But at a time when county health services face severe cutbacks--a separate tax measure on the November ballot is aimed at keeping that wolf from that door--veteran fund-raisers and anti-tax activists say the museums have a challenging sales job ahead of them.

In at least some circles, “the taxpayers are looking at this as a frivolous request at a time when the county is assuring voters that it’s in dire straights,” said Kris Vosburgh, Los Angeles-based executive director of the statewide Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. Though bond-issues promoters are stressing seismic and safety aspects of the proposal, he asserted, it amounts to “money for spiffing up museums.”

Rich and other bond boosters are quick to say that this approach is neither a slam dunk nor a blank check. To pass, the bond needs a two-thirds majority--a level met by just three of the nine county and statewide measures on last March’s gubernatorial primary ballot. Under the proposed bond measure’s provisions, the money will be gathered through property taxes and will only be released if the institutions separately raise roughly $1.15 in private funds for every dollar in public money they receive. The museums have until November 2012 to do their share of the fundraising.

By one county analyst’s estimate, if the cultural institutions meet their private fund-raising targets, the bond issue would cost the owner of a $250,000 home $6.96 over the first year and $6.04 the next, declining for the next 28 years.

The Natural History Museum says it hasn’t sought specific pledges from major individual donors yet, and won’t make any donor announcements before the election. LACMA leaders say they don’t know when they’ll be ready to unveil major donations. Both institutions say they won’t have major new details to add before November, but just as they collaborated in polling to investigate the prospects for a bond issue, they plan to collaborate on the campaign.

As for the region’s major philanthropists, “obviously, nobody’s excited about making commitments with their stocks way down,” said Broad on Friday. He called the bond measure, which allows the county essentially to borrow money and pay the debt over 30 years, an ingenious plan that could capitalize on low interest rates and serve as “a catalyst” to inspire other gifts. Asked when he plans to disclose his own contribution to LACMA’s project, Broad said that “if the bond issue passes, and I assume it will, it will probably be some time next year.”

Broad, who has hinted that his gift would be something more than $23 million, said he thinks the museum’s board members together need to come up with $150 million.

The bond campaign is likely to stress the museums as a resource for children. Under the proposed bond, both museums are required to increase their free admissions to children and free tours to school groups by 50% over 2001-02 levels. But it will also stress the idea of a public and private fundraising collaboration.

“This is something that seems quite different, using public funds to leverage private philanthropy. It’s more than just about museums. It’s something about the psyche of L.A.,” said Jim Ferris, director of USC’s Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy. However, “I think there’s a risk,” Ferris said. “If the community’s not willing to support something, someone might say, ‘Why should I invest my resources in it?’ Especially since philanthropists like to leverage their resources. On the other hand, you might have someone who wants to be a hero and step up. It depends on the philanthropists, and I don’t know which kind we have more of.”

Generally, said Edward Abel, president and chief executive of the American Assn. of Museums in Washington, D.C., “there is a greater use today of bonds as a challenge for the private sector to match. It’s a growing trend around the country, in particular for government-owned museums.”

Currently, local governments in Palm Beach, Fla., and Dallas are each laying groundwork for votes on bond issues to fund cultural projects--in Palm Beach, a museum; in Dallas, a performing arts center (whose architects include Rem Koolhaas).

Leaders at LACMA and the Natural History Museum say this alliance is the most ambitious collaboration ever between the institutions, an arrangement that may be eased by the common backgrounds of LACMA’s Rich and the Natural History Museum’s director, Jane Pisano. (Rich came to her position after a longer career in administration at UCLA; Pisano took over the Natural History Museum in 2001 after a similar career at USC.) “We speak the same language,” Rich said.

Perhaps their greatest challenge is the fact that, in both cases, their new or improved buildings remain far from fully defined. Officials say design decisions are still being made on both projects, and even if all needed money was in hand, groundbreaking would be at least two years away at LACMA, and perhaps four years away at the Natural History Museum, which just announced Steven Holl as its architect on July 1.

In September, LACMA expects reports from architect Koolhaas on the feasibility of the project’s key elements, including the razing of four buildings, the reuse of the existing plinth beneath the LACMA complex, and the proposed tent-like roof. But Rich and other LACMA officials say they will resist attaching a price tag to LACMA’s ambitions for at least several more months, until they have more information.

The museum is expected to seek up to $300 million in building costs and another $100 million to boost its endowment, figures Rich will neither affirm nor dispute, except to say, “It’s floating around there.”

Added Rich: “I wish the stock market were different. I have no idea what the impact of that is going to be, but certainly it’s made it harder, not easier.” If the measure fails, “we keep going, and try to do as much as we can from private fundraising,” said Rich. “But as bonds go, this is not a big one, and it is pretty targeted and pretty controlled in terms of where the money will go and how it’s allocated. It’s not a free-for-all.”

The oldest buildings in the LACMA complex date to the 1960s. The Natural History Museum, housed in an Exposition Park building that dates to 1913 (with several additions added over succeeding decades), plans a dramatic renovation costing as much $300 million.

So far, said the Natural History Museum’s Pisano, “we’re not ready yet to ask [major] donors for funds because we don’t have a design. We need to have more information about the design of the building and the nature of the exhibits.”

But no matter how ambitious the institutions’ renovation plans, Pisano said, any physical changes will mean meeting more recent and demanding safety standards. “Over the years, the deferred maintenance has become very great. It’s time for a major investment in these facilities,” said Pisano.

Once the decision was made to go forward with the bond measure, Rich said, county and museum officials designed “a geographical embrace” to the bond measure--that is, to add further elements that might encourage support around the county.

“We own the buildings. If they fall down, it’s going to be our responsibility,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who labels the bond proposal “a historic opportunity.”

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County Bond Initiative for Arts Allocations

*--* Public Private Facility/Program Contribution Match I N M I L L I O N S Natural History Museum: Exposition Park 98.0 112.5 Museum of Art 98.0 112.5 Music Center 10.0 10.0 CSUN-Performing Arts Center 15.0 15.0 El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic, cultural & 15.0 -- arts complex County Parks & Recreation: Performing Arts 8.0 -- Center County Arts Commission: Construction Grant 5.0 -- Program County Office of Education: L.A. High School 1.0 -- for the Arts Total 250.0 250.0

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