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Community and cultural art centers are the some of latest victims of a sluggish economy and Los Angeles’ fiscal crisis.
Positions at the Watts Towers Arts Center will be cut until the City of Los Angeles can find private nonprofit entities to take over operations of the facility. Positions and services at the William Grant Still Arts Center were also facing cuts as early as March 26, but City Councilman Herb Wesson Jr., at a March 24 City Council meeting, helped unanimously approve a motion to appropriate $200,000 to keep the center open until at least June 30.
Pink slips were issued about mid-March to the two full-time employees at the William Grant Still Art Center: the director and art coordinator. Although the facility will receive funding, the director and art coordinator will be laid off but re-hired on a temporary basis until the end of the fiscal year, said Ed Johnson, a spokesperson for Wesson. The funding will cover salaries, programming and operations at the facility, he said.
If action was not taken to help the William Grant Still Arts Center, there was a possibility the facility would have closed on March 26.
“We want to use this strategy to see if partnerships can improve services,” Olga Garay, executive director for the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, said in reference to finding private entities to take over cultural and art centers. “If not, the city is going to have to make a decision. It’s either: Close these places, or try to find appropriate partners.”
Garay also said the department’s budget has been slashed by almost 50 percent. The William Grant Still Art Center, at 2520 W. View St., offers dance and theater programs, workshops and classes, and has hosted exhibitions and several other events, including the annual Black Doll Show. It was established in 1977 and is named after the late William Grant Still, the “dean of American black composers.”
News of the downsizing came just as the center had launched its 10-week Music L.A. program, which, among other things, offers participants music classes, piano, drum and clarinet lessons.
Joyce Maddox, the William Grant Still Art Center’s director, said the program has 250 participants.
The Watts Towers Art Center, at 1727 E. 107th St., was founded in 1965 and turned over to the City of Los Angeles in 1976. It offers many activities, from painting and drawing, to modern dance. It has three full-time positions, two of which are planned to be cut. As of April 1, the art instructor will be laid off, and the clerk typist will be laid off by July 1, Garay said.
The Watts Towers center’s director, the third position, has not received a notice yet.
Garay was set to meet March 24 with the directors of the Watts Towers, Canoga Park and Sun Valley ArtsCenter to try to figure out the best strategy for maintaining programming given the fiscal decisions the department faces.
“We’re bringing together the heads of these centers to see what kind of a game plan we can come up with that will help to minimize service interruption” while we go through the Request for Proposals process, she said.
There is a public/private fund used to purchase art that totals about $19 million, Garay said.
L.A. City Councilmen Tom LaBonge and Ed Reyes recently attended a meeting and instructed City Attorney Carmen A. Trutanich to look at city ordinances and regulations about the money to see if portions could be used to help address the challenges the arts centers are facing, Garay added.
“There’s a lot of restrictions (about) how that money can be used,” Garay said.
Local community activists are working to keep William Grant Still and the Watts Towers community centers fully operational and not downsized.
According to Janine Watkins, a Watts resident, the community is protesting the downsizing of the Watts TowersArts Center. The community is also asking that the Watts Towers Art Center not be privatized because of the uniqueness of the towers, she said.
“We have Internet petitions, petitions on the ground,” Watkins said. “You cannot consciously make a decision on the community in haste without any facts. They are doing it in a rush under the guise of budget cuts.”
DeAnna Sumrow, a parent of one of the children who uses services at the William Grant Still Art Center, said her group of parents was requesting that the facility’ s staff be maintained until a decision has been made about accessing the public/private fund.
Garay said the city has already found private operators for a majority of the 18 cultural centers it operates, including the Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Croatian Cultural Center of Greater Los Angeles, and the Lankershim ArtsCenter.
In addition to the William Grant Still and Watts Towers art centers, Garay said the city is seeking private operators for the Barnsdall Art Center; Barnsdall Municipal Gallery Theatre; Madrid Theatre; Warner Grand Theatre; and the Vision Theatre.
Article courtesy of The L.A. Watts Times. For more stories, visit L.A. Watts Times online.
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