Arts Task Force Chair Daniel Stern says a recent controversy over a proposal to hold an arts festival in December projected to cost $50,000 was a miscommunication.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
The Malibu Arts Task Force is holding a town hall meeting next Thursday to gather public input on a cohesive policy to nurture art in Malibu in the future.
The task force was created in late 2010, with each member of the city council appointing two members, for the purpose of creating a cultural arts report.
The report would include recommendations on funding, assessments of arts venues and artistic organizations, and other steps the city can take in the future to support arts in the city. It may also recommend the creation of a permanent arts commission or similar organization, as well as provisions on the placement of public art.
Some members of the task force felt that its leader, Daniel Stern, and task force Vice Chair Graeme Clifford had overstepped their authority when they brought to the Malibu City Council at its Aug. 22 meeting an idea for a community art festival.
To be called “Arts Splash,” the event would have taken place in December and served as a showcase for local artists in an effort to bring visibility and drum up support for art in the city. A detailed list of projected expenses was prepared, totaling approximately $49,000, according to the staff report from the meeting.
Fellow task force members Lotte Cherin and John Mazza at the Aug. 22 meeting said they had not been consulted on the cost of the event and had not agreed to it. Clifford said at the meeting the task force was not requesting $49,000 from the city council, only listing the predicted cost of the event. Clifford said the task force would be responsible for raising the money privately. In the face of Cherin and Mazza’s opposition, the council requested the task force meet on the issue to get on the same page.
Mazza said the event had not been approved by the task force, and ran counter to the task force’s purpose of creating a cohesive vision for art in Malibu.
“[The event] wasn’t the assignment of the group,” Mazza said. “They don’t have the authority to do it.”
Stern, who was not present at the Aug. 22 meeting, said the idea for the art festival had been brought up and received positive responses from members of the task force, and said he was surprised by the opposition to it. Stern said confusion may have come from the separation of the task force into two groups, one for community outreach, which he and Clifford serve on, and one for the purpose of fundraising and financing art, on which Cherin and Mazza serve.
“I don’t know what they were thinking, quite frankly,” Stern said, referring to Cherin and Mazza. “It was certainly vetted by the task force. In terms of the specifics, they wouldn’t have known that because they weren’t on the subcommittee that was tasked with it.”
Though plans for the event have been shelved, Stern expressed hope it could be revisited in the future and one day become an annual event.
“It’s still an idea,” Stern said. “The city sort of backed off of it, and I agree with them we probably weren’t quite ready, but that’s what the idea is and hopefully it will happen at some point.”
Meanwhile, the city council has appropriated $2,000 for the town hall meeting scheduled for Oct. 6. Stern sounded upbeat about possibilities for the meeting.
“The task force has gotten itself to a particular point of informing ourselves, looking at options of what exists in Malibu culturally, good ways to go forward to create a governmental commission, a potential nonprofit, funding ideas such as a business tax for ways to raise money for art in Malibu,” Stern said. “We’ve done a lot of homework and it’s time to talk to the public so they can add a lot of information about where we’re going.”