Museum campaign heats up

With the Nov. 5 election approaching, backers of a county bond issue for cultural facilities are stepping up their campaign, but they face a daunting level of support needed for approval, and opponents claim that the measure’s stated intent is misleading.

The supporters of Los Angeles County Measure A, a proposed bond issue of $250 million to pay for major upgrades at the county’s art and natural history museums and new construction at a handful of other cultural institutions, have stepped up their efforts in the last week with a round of TV spots and plans for a mailer in coming days.

In their arguments, the measure’s supporters have stressed the protection from earthquake and fires that the construction will bring, and compiled a long list of endorsements from school, city, county, state and federal officials. Opponents, who as of Sept. 30 hadn’t spent a dime, assert in recently released ballot arguments that the bond issue amounts to “a blank check” for arts organizations that has more to do with institutional ambition than visitor safety.

The measure’s backers are led by top officials and contributors to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who together have put more than $1 million into the campaign.

Each museum is in the early stages of dramatic renovation plans, with costs at each expected to reach $300 million. They and their allies in support of Measure A, however, face several challenges.

Perhaps the greatest is the number of votes it will take to win. Because the bond issue would be paid for by a boost in property taxes, the measure needs to win two-thirds of the votes cast -- a target that most ballot initiatives failed to reach in the last round of county and state elections.

The initiative, placed on the ballot by the county Board of Supervisors, calls for a $250-million bond issue, to be paid off in 30 years. In its first year, the property-tax boost would amount to $6.96 per year for the owner of a $250,000 home, with the bite steadily declining over the next 29 years.

The money would be spread among several building projects, but the lion’s share, $196 million, would be divided between LACMA and the Natural History Museum. The measure’s backers have attached a matching-fund requirement to the bond, mandating that taxpayer dollars will only be passed along to the museums if the institutions separately raise roughly $1.15 in private funds for every public dollar.

Thus, to qualify for its $98 million, each museum needs to privately raise $112.5 million between now and November 2012. The measure calls for the bond money to be limited to “seismic, fire and life safety, and associated work” and overseen by an advisory committee appointed by the county Board of Supervisors.

The remaining $54 million would be shared among half a dozen county-sponsored projects, including $15 million toward a new performing arts complex at Cal State Northridge, $15 million toward creation of a cultural arts complex on county property in the El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic district in downtown Los Angeles; and $8 million for a new performing arts center in the San Gabriel Valley. Some of those projects, including the Northridge proposal, require matching funds; others, like the downtown historic district, do not.

Though top officials at the art and natural history museums expect private contributions to pay for most of their renovations, they say planning and cost estimates remain at an early stage, and neither expects to announce any donors or amounts until months after the election.

Without a bond issue, said Jane Pisano, director of the Natural History Museum, “we’re going to have to look for other sources of public funding.... I really believe that there needs to be some public money in this project. If we’re looking now at a $300-million project, having the public piece of it being one-third strikes me as reasonable.”

County officials have labeled Measure A an “earthquake and fire safety bond” and to underline the emphasis on safety, the measure’s supporters have enlisted Caltech seismologist Dr. Kate Hutton to join the city and county fire chiefs and a former Federal Emergency Management Agency official in the ballot arguments in favor of the bond issue. The television spots open with images of 1994 earthquake destruction in the San Fernando Valley, then cut to the Natural History Museum and later feature Caltech’s seismology lab director Don Helmberger.

The measure’s backers point out that the Natural History Museum’s main Exposition Park building, much of which dates to 1913, “does not meet today’s strict earthquake and fire safety standards.” Measure A, their ballot argument says, “will protect children and adults from earthquake and fire hazards at this and other aging science and cultural facilities.”

This is where skeptics step in. The measure’s opponents, who include Ted Brown, chairman of the Libertarian Party in the Glendale/Pasadena region; and John Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., argue that the bond issue is more than simply a safety measure, because it earmarks money not just for upgrading of existing buildings, but construction of new ones.

Though the Natural History Museum’s oldest portions date back 89 years (with additions in the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘60s and ‘70s), the institution remains open, serving thousands of visitors weekly without any special restrictions from fire or building officials.

At LACMA, also open and unrestricted, the oldest buildings in the museum’s central complex date to the mid-1960s, which makes them newer than most residences in Los Angeles County (according to the 2000 census), and newer than the 1960 county administration building in downtown Los Angeles, as well. The LACMA complex was also the subject of a major renovation in the 1980s.

The centerpiece of LACMA’s capital improvement plan, unveiled in December, is Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ proposal to level the LACMA complex’s four central buildings and build anew a reorganized museum.

“Instead of making a few needed renovations, the museum board elected to hire an avant-garde designer and totally raze the existing buildings,” assert Brown, Coupal and company in their ballot argument against the measure. “Some would call this excessive, while others might say the new design is a dramatic way to house the county’s premier artworks. But taxpayers should not pay in any event.”

LACMA spokesman Jim Rawitsch dismissed those objections, stressing the safety angle: “The language of the bond issue is explicit.... This is a problem that’s been waiting to be solved.”

He also noted that 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.

County registrar’s records show that Citizens for Earthquake and Fire Safety, the principal group boosting Measure A, took in $1.18 million in contributions through Sept. 30 and spent $250,693.

Among the biggest backers: Museum Associates (the private, nonprofit group associated with LACMA) has given $950,000; the L.A. County Museum of Natural History Foundation has given $200,000; developer and philanthropist Donald Bren of Newport Beach has given $25,000; and the Friends of Zev Yaroslavsky, the county supervisor who has worked most closely with the museums on the measure, made a loan of $2,000 to the campaign.

Through Sept. 30, the spending included about $152,000 on political consulting by Santa Monica-based Winner & Mandabach Campaigns and $95,000 on polling by Santa Monica-based Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates.

Campaign consultant Jorge Flores, of Winner & Mandabach, declined to estimate what total campaign spending would be but said the pro-Measure A campaign began airing television spots Oct. 14, on network affiliates and cable channels. Mailings to “high propensity” voters countywide are planned for the last 10 days of campaign, Flores said.