Cultural Affairs Commission OKs 12 Out of 57 Grant Appeals

Arts grants to 12 organizations and individuals denied funding last month through the L.A. Endowment for the Arts were approved Thursday by the Cultural Affairs Commission, the governing body for the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

The awards were made through the city’s first-ever grant appeals process, which has sparked controversy in arts circles because only $55,075 was available to satisfy 57 organizations that filed appeals asking for a total of $1.3 million.

Appeals were granted according to two criteria: if the peer panels voting on the grants had overlooked information contained in the applications, or if the department or panels had not followed established guidelines.

Although the grantees still must be approved by Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council, Thursday’s approval is considered final because the $55,075 appeals pot was allocated in July along with $3 million in Endowment grants awarded to 243 organizations and artists.

Although large groups such as Shakespeare Festival/LA and Fringe Festival/L.A. did receive funding, turned down once again was the powerhouse Museum of Contemporary Art, which reiterated its original $100,000 request for support of “First Visit and Beyond,” a 3 1/2-year program planned to bring contemporary art education to the community.

During Thursday’s meeting, Commission members questioned why MOCA wasn’t funded and said the program--which received $250,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989 as a model program for U.S. museums--was a worthy one that the city should consider funding. Ann Giagni, a Cultural Affairs staff member who worked with the allocations committee that voted on the appeals, said, “The feeling was that it was a good project, but it was a very poorly written grant application.”

Giagni, referring to an arbitrary $30,000 that the Cultural Affairs Department gave MOCA last year outside of the grants process, added: “MOCA was not successful last year and were given an accommodation and told specifically that they were going to have to work with us on their application. Just because they’re a major organization doesn’t mean they don’t have the same responsibility as everyone else (in making a thorough grant application).”

Erica Clark, MOCA development director, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Although Giagni said the department tried to award big enough appeals grants so applicants would not feel they “were really harmed by the mistake,” she noted that the top four appeals grantees would have received $2,000 to $4,000 more if the department had not erred and awarded them funds in the first round.

The organizations and individuals given appeals grants:

Shakespeare Festival/LA, $7,000; Fringe Festival/L.A., Loretta Livingston and Dancers, Otis Arts Institute, Stages Trilingual Theatre and Afro-American Chamber Orchestra, $5,000 each; California E.A.R. Unit and Rhapsody in Taps, $4,000 each; Cactus Foundation, $3,000; J. Cheng, $3,537.50; S. Gail, $5,000, and R. Mieczcowski, $3,537.50.