Vote Clears Key Hurdle for O.C. Museum Union

Narrowly overcoming a last-minute tide of opposition, proponents of a merger between two of Orange County’s most prominent art museums declared victory Thursday.

The Laguna Art Museum and the Newport Harbor Art Museum appeared headed for an unprecedented consolidation after Laguna members voted by a scant 6% margin to remove the largest remaining barrier.

Advocates of the merger foresee creation of a “first-class” Orange County Museum of Art with broad public appeal and a sound financial footing.

The merger still requires approval by the state attorney general’s office, which regulates charitable organizations. Also, Newport Harbor must balance its budget and both museums must settle legal and fiscal matters.

If the merged institution prospers over the long run, it would represent the first successful combination of art museums in the nation.

“I’m relieved and very happy,” said Laguna museum President Gilbert LeVasseur, a prime architect of the merger, announcing that 53% of the membership had approved bylaw and charter amendments necessary for the merger to proceed.

Now, he said, “we really want everyone to come together with us and use [his or her] energy and talent to build an exciting museum for the visual arts in Orange County.”

Although the bylaw and charter changes were minor, a group of staunch merger opponents sought to defeat them in an eleventh-hour effort to torpedo a deal viewed as depriving Laguna Beach of an independent, hometown arts museum. The 78-year-old museum is the county’s oldest arts institution and cornerstone of the city’s widely known art colony.

The group, Motivated Museum Members, was able to muster increasing support in recent weeks, and the vote was much closer than proponents had predicted. LeVasseur, a former corporate merger specialist, confessed Thursday that he had been blindsided by the opposition’s strength.

The group pledged Thursday to continue efforts to block the attorney general’s approval, recall Laguna Art Museum trustees in a vote set for Aug. 5 and sue to stop the merger.

“Now that we have created a strong front, we will continue the fight until the Laguna Art Museum is independent,” said Motivated Museum Members vice president Fitz Maurice, a Laguna Beach artist artist. “We welcome [a countywide museum] but not on the ashes of the Laguna Art Museum.”

Though they have been criticized for not bringing the public into the merger discussions, museum officials have no plans to meet with the dissidents or to wage a public relations campaign to defeat a recall vote and bolster support for the Orange County Museum of Art, LeVasseur said. “Our board of trustees, the management of the museum, its employees and its members want to fulfill the merger and the plan that has been laid out.”

“We are delighted a decision has been made,” said Newport Harbor President James V. Selna, “and we can now move forward.”

Merger proponents--who have stressed that the Laguna museum risks insolvency without a merger--say a countywide institution will achieve instant financial stability through economies of scale.

They envision someday a larger home, perhaps in the South Coast Metro area, that would be a visual arts equivalent to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, hosting big-name touring shows and drawing big crowds and donations of art and cash.

But first the museum would operate from the Newport Harbor building near the Fashion Island shopping center, where office space is being converted to galleries. Already, three-quarters of the $3.2-million renovation budget has been raised, and trustees expect the rest by June 1.

The museums’ consolidated staffs would move into a former library next to Newport Harbor. Both museums employ a total of 26 people; officials say up to five may be laid off.

The Laguna museum would be operated as a semiautonomous satellite by the new institution and a nonprofit Laguna Art Museum Heritage Corp., being formed by local residents who once had opposed the merger.

The Heritage Corp. would be responsible for two-thirds of the satellite’s $400,000 annual budget--or $22,000 a month. “If the town is as split as it is right now,” said G. Ray Kerciu, a Laguna resident who has been active in the merger talks, “I think it’s going to be damn hard to raise the money.”

The merger is expected to take full effect next summer, when the Orange County Museum of Art opens at the expanded Newport site. Until then, both Laguna and Newport Harbor will present previously planned exhibits. The Laguna museum’s satellite gallery in the South Coast Plaza mall will remain open.

The museum would showcase California art from the late 19th century through the present. It would be directed by Naomi Vine, current director of the Laguna museum. Newport Harbor director Michael Botwinick says he did not want the job.

Charles D. Martin, a Newport Harbor trustee who worked with LeVasseur to engineer the merger, would be board president.

LeVasseur attributed the closeness of the vote to “quite a bit of confusion” created when the Laguna Beach City Council came out against the merger last week after first having supported it. The council has no authority over the museum but called the merger harmful to “the city, its residents [and] its cultural heritage.”

“We were surprised,” LeVasseur said. “We were disappointed.”

Laguna Beach Councilwoman Kathleen Blackburn said this week that her disapproval of the merger was triggered by the agreement with the Heritage Corp. and her concern that the city ultimately would have to assume the burden of funding the Laguna satellite, if money can’t be raised privately.

Laguna Beach has allocated the museum about $2,000 annually in recent years, according to a city official.

Motivated Museum Members, which claims to have several hundred members, seized on the council’s reversal and made it a cornerstone of its campaign to block the merger, petitioning the 1,400 museum members who had received ballots for the amendments vote.

The group views the merger as a hostile takeover: Newport Harbor, which has run losses for the past eight years, “covets” Laguna’s $2-million endowment, its 3,800-piece art collection and its mortgage-free building and blufftop property, according to attorney Belinda Blacketer.

LeVasseur flatly denies that. The chief reason to merge, he said, always has been cost-saving through consolidation, crucial in an era of “diminishing [arts] funding from government sources, corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals.” He said merging should save between $200,000 and $400,000 in annual operating expenses.

He said that increased donations also are expected, although he would not name sources. “Corporations and wealthy individuals and foundations have told us that they are more interested in [donating to] something that has more impact on the community at large than the present configuration,” LeVasseur said.

Controversy surrounding the merger has cost the Laguna Art Museum money. Though it retired a $127,000 debt on its $1.1-million budget in February as a merger condition, trustees fearful of the recall threat have withheld nearly $70,000 in dues. LeVasseur said Wednesday that he cannot guarantee that the museum will meet overhead costs, including payroll, after next month.

Newport Harbor expects to wipe out its $200,000 deficit next week, mostly through trustee donations.

Motivated Museum Members hopes Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren will block the merger once he learns of the recall attempt and of the group’s allegation that the museum has violated voting laws governing nonprofit institutions. Blacketer charged that the latest ballot asked for a single vote on more than a dozen separate issues instead of granting separate votes for each issue. The Laguna Art Museum’s attorney, Trustee Ellen R. Marshall, asserted that nonprofit law allows for a single vote on “a group of related matters.”

Officials from the attorney general’s office have declined comment.

* WHAT’S NEXT: How events would unfold once a merger is in place. A14

What’s Next in Museum Merger

* The state attorney general, who oversees nonprofit corporations such as the museums, will be asked to approve the merger by June 4.

* Newport Harbor will begin to eradicate its $200,000 debt (the money is expected within a few days, mostly through trustee donations).

* If that happens and some related legal and fiscal matters are resolved, both museums will sign a merger contract to become the Orange County Museum of Art.

* The Newport Harbor and Laguna museum staffs would be consolidated in the former library next to the Newport Harbor building at Fashion Island. From about June 1 to November, Newport Harbor would be closed and office spaces converted to galleries. Previously scheduled exhibits at Newport Harbor would be shown November through June 1997; previously scheduled exhibits at the Laguna Art Museum, on Pacific Coast Highway near Main Beach, would be shown now through June 1997.

* Then, the Orange County Museum of Art officially would open at the Newport Harbor building.

* The Laguna museum building would remain open as a semiautonomous satellite. The Laguna museum’s satellite at South Coast Plaza mall would remain open.

* Orange County Museum of Art would form a long-range planning committee to consider moving to a larger site.

Source: Laguna and Newport Harbor art museum trustees

Researched by ZAN DUBIN / Los Angeles Times