Council Divvies Up Spare $3 Million

By Teresa Rochester

What would you do with a spare $3 million?

When faced with the same question at its meeting Tuesday night, Santa Monica's City Council divvied up the money -- left over from the 1999-2000 budget -- between a concert hall, an endowment for the arts and a number of capital improvement projects that will be recommended by City staff.

In a unanimous decision, the seven-member council agreed to earmark $150,000 of the year-end budget savings for a new sound system for Barnum Hall on the Santa Monica High School campus. The Art Deco concert hall is undergoing a major renovation.

In addition, the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District Education Foundation's new Endowment for the Arts will receive $500,000.

The remaining $2.35 million will go to partially fund capital improvement projects. The projects will likely include a parking garage at the Civic Center to accommodate parking for the new public safety building, as well as the County Courts, Civic Auditorium and City Hall.

Funds also will likely be used for seismic retrofitting for City Hall and for the new Main Library expansion.

"The main library expansion is incredibly important," said Councilwoman Pam O'Connor. "That facility is going to open doors to people. It's like a lifelong learning place. It's overflowing. The need is there. It's where school children, whether they go to public schools or private schools, can avail themselves to resources."

While the library is gaining a new building, space is sorely needed in City Hall. One of the stipulations governing the new public safety building is that City Hall be upgraded before the new facility can be occupied. Following mid-year budget adjustments approved by the council Tuesday night, the Planning Division, housed in City Hall, will grow with 13 new employees, making the need for space even more pressing.

Council members acknowledged that capital improvements may not be glamorous, but they said that they are definitely needed.

"It's not sexy to expand City Hall," said Mayor Mike Feinstein. "But it was built in the 1930s when it had nothing much going on here."

Councilman Kevin McKeown championed the funding of Barnum Hall's renovation, which has garnered a broad base of community support and an impressive donor list. The idea quickly received support from other council members.

Last year the council committed all of the City's $2.1 million 1998-1999 budget surplus to the school district after more than 40 parents and community leaders pleaded for the City to bail the district out of its anticipated multi-million dollar shortfall.

This year there were no crowds of parents or emotional testimonials, despite a $1.6 million budget shortfall projected by district officials. Instead the majority of the nine education proponents who spoke urged the council to give $1 million to the Education Foundation's new Endowment for the Arts. The foundation has recently embarked on a campaign to raise $10 million for the endowment.

"We would like the City to be one of the major funders or give a major million dollar gift," said Education Foundation president Ralph Mechur. "We would like to be able to say that the City was one of the major contributors."

Carol Coote, co-chair of the endowment's fundraising effort, told the council that Malibu resident and actor Mel Gibson has signed on as the campaign's honorary co-chair and that major motion picture and television studios, including 20th Century Fox and Universal, have representatives sitting on the campaign's board of directors.

"It is our hope that the council fund the arts," Coote said.

"Tonight you have the opportunity to invest and establish continuous means for arts education in our schools," said Donna Block, a professional artist and the former vice president of Mid-City Neighbors.

Councilman Richard Bloom successfully argued that the council should scale down the suggested $1 million to $500,000, which the endowment will receive when they have raised half of its $10 million goal.

"My belief is we should commit half a million tonight but it should be on the condition that people in the community step up to the plate," said Bloom. "We cannot allocate next year's budget money. But if the City remains healthy and the economy continued to thrive… I pledge to come back and ask for significant funds [for education]."

Councilman Herb Katz urged that any money given to education should also include funds for special education. Katz is the parent of two former special education students.

"I think it's very important that we give money for special education," Katz said. "I think it's very important that we be leaders in this area."

City staff and the City Attorney cautioned the council not to donate directly to the school district. Mike Dennis, the City's director of finance, advised the council not to commit one-time funds to district until staff members have a chance to analyze the potential for increasing the ongoing commitment of funds from the City to the district. He suggested that that best way to do this was through "joint use partnerships" of public school facilities for public use.

City Attorney Marsha Moutrie cautioned that state law strictly mandates the ways in which cities can contribute to their school districts.

"The degree the City works to support education is very unusual," she said, adding that in other areas "the support is virtually always in the form of joint use of facilities… There are a number of laws that may bear on your abilities [to contribute]. There are problems of a number of sorts."

The stance of City officials angered lifelong learning advocate Louise Jaffe.

"I have a very strong disagreement with staff," Jaffe said. "I find it unacceptable and unresponsible for a so-called progressive City to pass up the opportunity to invest in our children's lives when it matters…The $3million you are considering directing to capital improvements are not as significant as the day-to-day education of our children."

The council's approval of the mid-year budget adjustments for the 2000-2001 budget also includes an additional $6 million for the Pacific Coast Highway Sewer Project, which is costing the City more than it expected. The money will come from the City's Disaster Relief Fund.

Affordable housing will also get a boost with the appropriation of $6.5 million to finance various low and moderate-income housing projects. An additional $10.2 million in loans between the Redevelopment Agency and the General Fund will help meet the $25 million commitment to affordable housing made by the council in the 2000-2001 budget. The loans will be repaid from future tax increment revenue, according to the report by City staff.