Backer of Arts Center Quits Foundation Post

Linda Kinnee has quit as executive director of the Cultural Foundation, a Woodland Hills private group that is attempting to finance and build an expansive arts center in the Sepulveda Basin.

Kinnee, whose resignation is effective Saturday, will become executive director of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation.

Ross Hopkins, a private consultant, has been named interim director of the foundation.

Kinnee held the $60,000 post for four years, during which time the foundation moved closer to its goal of building Arts Park LA by conducting an international design competition.

Architects submitted models for the proposed complex’s five major structures: a theater, a children’s arts center, a visual arts center, an outdoor amphitheater and a natural history museum.

Arts Park would be placed amid 60 acres of rolling greenery along the basin’s northern border.

Government and city officials, who control the land, are considering the foundation’s proposal and will hold public hearings in late summer or early fall.