Arts panel accused of biased treatment

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- Advocates for a proposed arts center on property

behind the central library charged this week that the city committee

evaluating their proposal is biased against their case.

“It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to anyone,” said Don Gregory,

the city’s arts commissioner and an arts center advocate. “It just seems

to me that the citizens of Newport Beach have a right to get an

evenhanded hearing on this.”

In dispute is 12.5 acres of vacant land behind the library. The

proposal of the city arts commission calls for 3.5 of the acres to be

used for an arts and education center, while other plans would convert

all of the land into a park or leave it as open space.

A city-appointed committee has met three times to discuss the various

options. The most recent meeting took place Sept. 27.

Members of the arts commission who attended the meeting said the

council members who sit on the committee -- Norma Glover and Tom Thomson

-- gave dramatically different treatment to proponents of the arts center

than they had given to advocates for open space.

Arts Commissioner Roberta Jorgensen said members of the nonprofit Arts

Foundation, which hopes to begin raising funds for the center soon, were

told that such an effort would be futile in Newport Beach.

“They were not told to stop,” Jorgensen said. “But they were told that

this was virtually impossible” in the city.

Glover said the committee is giving a fair hearing to all sides.

“I’m letting everyone talk,” she said. “We have sent out many, many

letters trying to seek input from everybody on this issue. I want to make

sure at the end of this process that everybody has been heard and

involved.”

Thomson, who also said the meetings have been fair, argued that art

center proponents are letting their emotions drive their complaints.

“If you have people who feel like they’re losing their arguments, then

they start getting nasty and personal on you,” he said.

Gregory countered that the tone taken by council members in their

treatment of arts center advocates has made it difficult to have anything

but a personal response to the meetings.

“They were grilled and editorialized by Ms. Glover and Mr. Thompson

constantly,” he said. “That’s not the role of somebody who’s supposed to

listen to different proposals.”

Catherine Saar-Kranzley, who is both a member of the city committee

and a trustee for the Newport Beach Public Library, agreed that open

space advocates have been treated “with kid gloves” compared to the

treatment of arts center advocates.

But Jan Vandersloot, a steering committee member of Stop Polluting Our

Newport, which is pushing for the land to remain open, dismissed the idea

that there has been any disparity in the treatment of the two sides.

“I think they were listened to very carefully and courteously,”

Vandersloot said. “I think [the committee was] asking appropriate

questions, and I think they’ve been very fair about it.”

For that matter, he noted, his own presentation in favor of open space

was cut off by the committee because there wasn’t enough time to finish

it.