Festival of Arts Taking Positive Steps Forward

With all the controversy swirling around the Festival of Arts this summer, many positives were overlooked. Worse yet, rumors and misinformation were passed along as fact. This hurt the image of the festival, as well as individual board members.

Taking the heat was festival board President Bruce Rasner. He was unfairly accused of blocking artist meetings when no meetings were blocked, signing agreements that were never signed, and actually having the nerve to bring an upscale food venue on to the grounds. (OK, that part is true. Zov’s offered wonderful food and Sunday cooking demonstrations!) He was accused of robbing potential artists the opportunity of showing their work in favor of a guest artist spot. In reality there were five more artists in the show this year, and our guest artist was gracious enough to give her time and good name to the festival and pageant.

Rasner was instrumental in negotiating a 40-year lease with the city.

Audio tours were added, giving the public the opportunity to hear individual artists discuss their work as they viewed the show. A volunteer docent program was added. The grounds and exhibition space have never looked better.

This winter the pageant workshops will be rebuilt, ensuring a safe work environment. The long-term plans have been prioritized with the input of the city, festival staff and interested artists.

Instead of vilifying Rasner, we should be thanking him, and hoping he will continue working so hard for us in the future.

Kate Riegler

Laguna Beach

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Re “The Fine Art of Compromise,” Sept. 7:

As president of the Festival of Arts, I would like to applaud your editorial. One note of clarification: The $10-million figure in your editorial is actually for the projected renovation of the entire festival grounds and not merely for placing a cover on the Irvine Bowl. In fact, the City Council requested that the festival consider covering the bowl at a cost of $1 million to $2.5 million. At this time the festival board does not contemplate a need for such a cover.

This board recently concluded a 40-year lease reflecting a new partnership between the city of Laguna Beach and the festival. Both parties contemplated a year-round use of the festival grounds, which for nearly 70 years have been underutilized from September through June.

During the lease negotiations and our meetings with residents, members, artists and employees, we considered various possible uses of the grounds, keeping in mind our charter to promote art and culture. We will continue our open dialogue with the city.

The majority of our board is committed to enhancing the festival and pageant, and has taken steps by renovating the Forum Theater, our food service area and gift shop. This week we broke ground on two new pageant workshops so that our staff and volunteers can have a clean, safe environment. We continue to invite all to participate in our visioning and planning process to improve the Festival of Arts experience.

Bruce Elliott Rasner

President, board of directors

Festival of Arts