The City of Los Angeles plans to cut two of three full-time staffers at the Watts Towers Art Center, which has offered activities from painting and drawing to modern dance to community members.
The arts center is at 1727 E. 107th Street, next to the famed towers that rise over the Watts district, serving as one of the few widely recognizable tourist attractions in the hard-pressed precinct at the south end of the city.
The arts facility came into being in 1965 and has been operated by the city since 1976. The cuts to staff are scheduled to take effect with the lay-off of an art instructor on April 1 and a clerk typist on July 1.
The layoffs come as city officials attempt to close a current budget gap of $73 million over the balance of the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, as well as a shortfall estimated at more than $400 million for the following 12-month period. City officials indicated that they will seek to find private, nonprofit entities to take over operations of the facility in hopes of retaining or rehiring staff. The nonprofits would run the facilities on a contract basis, with the goal of providing services at a lower cost.
The plans for cuts also buzzed close to the operations of the William Grant Still Arts Center at 2520 W. View Street, also in South Los Angeles. The facility currently serves an estimated 250 participants in the dance and theater programs, workshops and classes it offers. The facility also hosts various exhibitions and other events, including the annual Black Doll Show. It was established in 1977 and is named after the late William Grant Still, the "dean of American black composers." News of the proposed cuts to staff came just as the center had launched its 10-week Music L.A. program, which, among other things, offers participants music classes, piano, drum and clarinet lessons.
An initial proposal called for both of two full-time employees at the William Grant Still Arts Center — a director and an art coordinator — to be laid off on March 26. Those positions were spared the budget ax for at least several months when 10th District Los Angeles City Councilmember Herb Wesson, Jr., gained approval from his colleagues on the 15-member legislative body to appropriate $200,000 from remaining grant money or the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) to maintain operations until June 30. The new plan calls for the two workers to be re-hired on a temporary basis until the end of the fiscal year, said Ed Johnson, a spokesperson for Wesson. The funding will cover salaries, programming and operations at the facility, he said.
Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, said she hopes to line up nonprofits in time to keep the Wiliam Grant Still Arts Center and a number of similar facilities in service.
"If not, the city is going to have to make a decision. It's either close these places, or try to find appropriate partners," Garay said.
Garay also said the Department of Cultural Affairs' budget has been cut by almost 50% as the city moves to close the budget gap. That has led to recent meetings of city staffers to try to hammer out new ideas about operations.
"We're bringing together the heads of these centers to see what kind of a game plan we can come up with that will help to minimize service interruption" while the search for nonprofit operators continues, Garay said.
Meanwhile, there is some talk about the possibility of using a fund that combines public and private money for the purchase of art — currently estimated to contain $5 million or more — to plug financial gaps in some of the arts centers targeted for cutbacks.
Third District City Councilmember Tom LaBonge and 1st District representative Ed Reyes recently attended a meeting and instructed City Attorney Carmen A. Trutanich to look at ordinances and regulations about the money in the art-purchase fund to see if portions could be spent on arts centers are facing, according to Garay.
"There's a lot of restrictions (about) how that money can be used," Garay said.
Meanwhile, local community activists are working to keep William Grant Still and the Watts Towers centers fully staffed and operational.
Janine Watkins, a Watts resident, said the community is protesting the downsizing of the Watts Towers Arts Center.
"We have Internet petitions, petitions on the ground," Watkins said. "You cannot consciously make a decision on the community in haste without any facts. They are doing it in a rush under the guise of budget cuts."
DeAnna Sumrow, the mother of a child enrolled in a program at the William Grant Still Art Center, said that she and other parents are requesting that the facility's staff be maintained until a decision has been made about accessing the public-private art-purchase fund.
Garay said the city has already found private operators for a majority of the 20 or so cultural centers it operates, including the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Hancock Park, the Croatian Cultural Center of Greater Los Angeles in San Pedro, and the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood.
In addition to the William Grant Still and Watts Towers art centers, Garay said the city is still seeking private operators for facilities in various parts of the city, including the Barnsdall Art Center and the Barnsdall Municipal Gallery Theatre, both in Hollywood; the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park; the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro; and the Vision Theatre in Leimert Park.
Chico C. Norwood is a writer for the L.A. Watts Times.
Photos courtesy of the L.A. Watts Times and Wikimedia Commons.
Read more stories from the L.A. Watts Times »
Leave a comment