City agency takes control of LATC

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to switch temporary control of the city-owned Los Angeles Theatre Center from developer Tom Gilmore back to the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, which had run the building from 1991 until the end of last year.

Cultural Affairs assistant general manager Leslie Thomas quickly responded that the agency has no money to take on the task.

Last year, Gilmore had been chosen to run the downtown arts building on a permanent basis. But the long-term arrangement was delayed because of a dispute with Latino Theater Company, one of two companies that had been picked to share the building’s three larger theaters for nine months of each year.

Gilmore had nevertheless begun managing LATC under an interim arrangement with Cultural Affairs. The council action Wednesday voided that deal.

The Latino company, which opened a production at LATC last week, had complained that Gilmore was charging unreasonable fees and unfairly determining how stages could be used.

Council members sided with the theater group. Councilman Ed Reyes said it was “mind-boggling” that the city’s Cultural Affairs Department had ignored the theater company’s concerns. “Why would they want to treat a great group like second-class citizens?” he asked.

Jose Luis Valenzuela, the group’s artistic director, said he was pleased with the council’s action and hoped his group could operate the theater.

Gilmore, meanwhile, said he merely wanted to turn the theater center into a lively and pleasant downtown attraction. “This is not a moneymaking thing for Tom Gilmore,” Gilmore said. “Tom Gilmore cares about his neighborhood.”

Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes the center, said she saw five options for the city. They involve allowing Gilmore to manage the property, maintaining it as a city-run building, permanently shuttering it, selling it or starting the process again with a new request for proposals.

A spokesman for Cultural Affairs’ Thomas said the building requires at least $500,000 a year in maintenance expenses and that the agency doesn’t have the money. The City Council will have to decide where the money will come from, he added.

In March, Cultural Affairs had briefly faced the possibility of extinction because of the city’s budget crisis. But an outcry from artists resuscitated the agency with a new mission of “cultural tourism” added to its responsibilities.