Grove Symphony Official Confident of Subsidy

Garden Grove Symphony officials refused to concede defeat Thursday after learning that the City Council had rejected their request for a $20,000 subsidy the night before.

“I anticipate that the city will be a partner with the symphony, as it was before,” orchestra manager Yaakov Dvir-Djerassi said Thursday. “We just have to wait and see. It could be next Monday or on the following Monday. We will eventually get out of the politics here.”

The vote against the subsidy was 3 to 2, with Mayor J. Tilman Williams and Councilmen Raymond T. Littrell and Robert F. Dinsen voting against; Councilmen W.E. (Walt) Donovan and Milton Krieger voted for it.

The subsidy would have been used to pay musicians, guest artists and conductors.

The $20,000 is 9% of the orchestra’s total budget, Dvir-Djerassi said. “We need the money because practically every other grants organization wants to know that the community you come from is supporting you. So it is an important symbolic act.”

Last year was the third consecutive year in which the orchestra was funded by the city. It received $38,500, of which $15,000 went toward the orchestra’s outdoor park concerts. The remainder was to be used in increments for the rest of the season.

“We returned $6,000 to the city at the end of the year because we saved here and there on some expenditures,” Dvir-Djerassi said. “We gave them that amount to go toward the general fund to utilize this year for the arts again. So they have $6,000 for the arts unused.”

City Manager George L. Tindall agreed that the issue isn’t dead.

“Just because the council said no last night doesn’t mean it’s no forever,” he said.

Tindall said the council, which has been criticized for not giving the Grove Theatre Company as much as it requested, is trying to deal with the question of how to “fund more organizations than there are funds available. They said no because all those issues had not been solved yet. The symphony can ask for funds again.”