BOWERS’ CHANGES UPSET VOLUNTEERS

Once again, a sweeping plan to reorganize Bowers Museum, Santa Ana’s best-known cultural institution, has come under attack from some of the city-owned museum’s longtime volunteer supporters.

Four years ago, when attempts to implement the plan were first made, dissident volunteers assailed the museum’s administration and $17-million expansion proposal. The protesters were then victorious: the director was ousted and the expansion designs were shelved.

This time, the issue is the very existence of the volunteer corps. Dissidents contend that volunteers have been stripped of any real role in the reorganization now taking place at the 49-year-old Main Street institution.

As these dissidents tell it, the city has assumed full control of the Charles W. Bowers Museum Corp., the nonprofit body formed by the city last month to run the museum. The corporation’s 11-member board, composed mostly of community representatives, is expected to be installed this fall.

And the volunteers’ own organizational base for 38 years, the Bowers Museum Foundation, has been disbanded in accordance with a city- and foundation-adopted plan. “We (volunteers) don’t have any real voice anymore. The city runs the whole show now. Basically they have kicked us out,” said a former foundation official, who asked not to be identified.

Under the new plan, according to dissidents, the city is driving away longtime supporters--many of whom are switching allegiance to the Newport Harbor Art Museum or Laguna Beach Museum of Art. Most big-name private donors, dissidents argue, will not give to Bowers as long as the museum is seen as a city-controlled operation. And some of the Bowers Foundation’s community cultural councils are leaving Bowers to form their own groups.

In another show of volunteers’ pique, the Bowers Museum Foundation board entertained a proposal to turn over the foundation’s 50,000-piece collection--roughly half of Bowers’ entire holdings--to other museums. The argument was that the works might not receive proper care at Bowers once the foundation was dissolved.

“That’s still a concern. But we (majority) felt we had to honor the fact that the works were given to be shown at Bowers, not somewhere else,” said one former foundation official, adding that the ownership of the foundation’s collection is being transferred to the new Bowers corporation as originally planned.

City officials have repeatedly maintained that community collaboration and an operational phaseout by the city are still essential to the current reorganization plan. But they also give a different picture of the foundation’s dissident faction.

“Don’t get me wrong, they (volunteers) are wonderful people; they have done a terrific job,” said Councilman P. Lee Johnson. “But there’s always been a group of them who have wanted everything their way, who thought of Bowers as their private domain. Now they can’t, and, frankly, they’re not very happy.”

For years, Bowers suffered from a split organizational personality. The city, through a city-appointed board, handled operations and maintenance. The Bowers Museum Foundation, a 1,400-member support organization, had jurisdiction over art and fiscal gifts, docents and other volunteer projects.

“That was the whole reason for the (reorganization) plan. To put an end to all the confusion and bickering, to install a clear-cut, unified operation under one board,” said John Connelly, who once headed both the foundation and the city museum boards.

In 1980, such a single-board reorganization plan--plus a proposed $17-million fund-raiser to greatly expand the present 24,000-square-foot museum--won City Council approval. At the same time, the Fluor Foundation gave $250,000 as a campaign-launching grant.

But the campaign was in disarray by early 1982. Expansion designs, which many foundation members found too modernistic, were shelved. Members also objected to the ambitiousness of the $17-million fund-raising campaign. This drive, already stifled by a nationwide economic malaise at the time and by competition from other arts drives, was also shelved. And the foundation faction’s chief foe, Museum Director Reilly Rhodes, an outspoken proponent of the $17-million project, was forced to resigned.

Yet, as foundation members depict it, the original regorganization plan appeared all but set for implementation by early 1984. Then a dramatic change in City Hall leadership took place: a new City Council ruling bloc took office and new city manager, Robert Bobb, was hired--all advocates of accelerated city redevelopment ventures.

The new city leadership contended the foundation was far too slow in seeking big private donors. “We put $1 million (a city pledge) on the table. We told them, we’ll give this much if they (foundation) would go out and raise a matching amount,” said Councilman Johnson. “To my knowledge they didn’t raise a nickel.”

In the reorganization plan launched this spring, the city took matters into its own hands. “It (city) had to step in and get this plan on the road. It felt that things had been floundering for too long,” said William Lee, one-time director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History who has been Bowers director since 1982.

Not only did the city alone--rather than in collaboration with community groups--form the Charles W. Bowers Museum Corp.--the city also is appointing the entire corporation board, said city officials. Although most members are yet to be announced, Bobb and Lee are already set to serve on this 11-member governing body.

The city plans to continue “indefinitely” the current level of annual subsidies to Bowers for both operations and maintenance, according to Bobb. In 1985-86, the city expects to provide $1 million of Bowers’ overall $1.3-million budget. (The museum has not received major federal or state operational grants. Except for the $250,000 Fluor grant, the museum has not attracted big private grants either.) Lee’s 20-member museum staff will remain city employees.

As for the transferring of Bowers Foundation assets to the new corporation, things are going “smoothly” but may take several more months, said Lee and foundation officials. The assets include $300,000 in previously donated monies. The foundation’s three full- and two part-time staff employees have already been terminated.

Although some of the foundation’s community groups--including the Mexican-American and black councils--intend to stay with Bowers, the Japanese-American and Chinese-American councils plan to join the newly formed Historical and Cultural Foundation of Orange County.

To city officials, the dissident criticisms are greatly exaggerated. “Our plan still calls for the most active, countywide community involvement, and that includes all the various ethnic and historical groups,” said City Manager Bobb. “Once our board is installed, and the corporation is off and running, you can be sure we’re going after the big private donors.”

Also, city officials pointed out, Bowers Museum is an anchor to a big-scale redevelopment proposal to make the entire North Main Street corridor--which includes Fashion Square Mall--a commercial and cultural showcase.

As part of this undertaking, a $35,000 feasibility study on Bowers development and fund raising is to be completed next month by Baer Associates of San Francisco. Under consideration, said Bobb, is construction of a privately developed high-rise office on the museum’s annex site. The high-rise would provide space for galleries and a 300-seat auditorium for the museum.

“Bowers is now a big piece in the (city’s) redevelopment schemes,” said a former foundation official. “The whole dynamics have changed in just one year. The city is not about to give away control (of Bowers) at this time.”

Still another belief shared by the city and the old volunteer corps is that Bowers has a cultural niche all its own--that of an Orange County museum that stresses history and archeology as well as traditional art in the West and Pacific Rim. The current Ban Chiang exhibit of prehistoric Thai works is considered a prime example.

Nevertheless, some longtime Bowers supporters fear the Santa Ana museum--still far behind the Laguna Beach Museum of Art and Newport Harbor Art Museum in fiscal backing and expansion planning--is falling behind.

“What I worry about is that Bowers has lost the momentum it had a few years ago,” said Alexander Nalle, a former foundation member and a one-time member of city-appointed boards at Bowers. “There’s a feeling now that the time for Bowers (expansion) has already passed.”