‘No conflict’ in arts manager’s activities

Laguna Beach’s cultural arts manager has stepped down from a brief stint as president of the Sawdust Art Festival, but remains on the organization’s board.

Sian Poeschl said her workload and issues in her personal life — and not questions about a potential conflict of interest between her city job and the art festival post — compelled her to step down.

“The timing just didn’t work out, although the honor was great, and it was wonderful that people truly believed in me. It’s a shame that I can’t do it,” Poeschl said Tuesday.

Poeschl has sold her glass artwork at the Sawdust Festival for about six years and joined the board about two years ago.

In Poeschl’s $70,000-a-year city job, she administers thousands of dollars in art grants and public art commissions — including to the Sawdust Festival — and serves as liaison to the arts commission and to the city’s arts organizations and galleries.

Poeschl, who has lived in Laguna Beach since 1993, is the city’s first cultural arts manager, having attained the post (when?) after serving as a part-time arts coordinator. She previously served as a member of the arts commission.

The Cultural Arts Department — of which Poeschl is the only employee — oversees spending of $1.45 million in annual Business Improvement District tax funds. The fund was established to promote tourism and related tourist events, according to the city budget.

Of the fund, $161,500 was allocated as of July 1 for arts commission special x programs — including public art competitions, exhibitions and performances — and $154,000 in cultural arts funding to 11 local arts groups, including $10,500 allocated to the Sawdust Art Festival.

Poeschl was appointed to the top post at Sawdust “by consensus” at some point after the new board was elected on Aug. 29, Sawdust spokeswoman Rebecca Meekma said.

Meekma issued a press release about the appointment on Sept. 11 stating that Poeschl was the new board president, and a story to that effect in the Coastline Pilot issue of Sept. 15 was not corrected.

On Sept. 12, questions about the potential conflict of interest between Poeschl’s two posts were raised by the Coastline Pilot to City Attorney Phil Kohn.

Kohn said he had a conference call with Poeschl and Asst. City Manager John Pietig on or about Sept. 13 to discuss the questions raised about her appointment as Sawdust president.

The city’s code of ethics, part of the municipal code, states that: “No public official or employee, while serving as such, shall have any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect, or engage in any business or transaction or professional activity, or incur any obligation of any nature which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties in the public interest and of his responsibilities as prescribed by the ordinances or resolutions of the city.”

Kohn said he knew of no code breaches in Poeschl’s appointment to the top position at Sawdust.

Poeschl denies any relationship between her position at the city and her work at the Sawdust. “It has nothing to do with it,” she said.

The city attorney said that he, Pietig and Poeschl went over Poeschl’s activities on a day-to-day basis, both within her job at the city and her board duties at the Sawdust Festival.

“Based on Siân’s description, despite superficial appearances, there is little or no opportunity for her to be put in a conflicting situation,” Kohn said.

He claimed, for example, that grant applications to the city are handled only by the Sawdust staff, and that such matters are not brought before the Sawdust board.

“We advised her to recuse herself from the process where appropriate, but any chances for conflict of interest are at best remote and more likely nonexistent,” Kohn said.

Kohn said Poeschl made no indication to him that she was planning to step down from the presidency, or had already stepped down, during their discussion.

“At no point in our conversation did she mention that [the presidency] was a moot point,” he said. “The conversation was entirely in the context of what she could and couldn’t do.”

Poeschl said she was happy to scrutinize the situation with Kohn to discern any potential conflicts, since she is still on the Sawdust board even after stepping down as president.

“I brought it up because I wanted to make sure that it all would be covered,” Poeschl said. ”I wanted to know every single angle; the city manager and the assistant city manager are very supportive of my being on the board.”

Poeschl said that she spent a few days making up her mind as to whether she would step down from the presidency. The timing was good, she said, since the summer festival season had just come to a close and the Winter Fantasy won’t begin until November.

“It was a week or so where nothing had happened, but it was a short enough period of time that it would have had no effect on the organization,” she said.

She said she spoke to members of the board on Sept. 11 and told them of her plans. But at an arts commission meeting on Sept. 11, commissioners congratulated Poeschl on her appointment during the public session, and she gave no indication at that time that she had stepped down.

The Sawdust is a private organization that owns its land, and board members are not paid, Meekma said.

On Tuesday, Poeschl informed the Coastline Pilot that she had stepped down from the Sawdust presidency some weeks prior and that a new president would be appointed Oct. 4.