Cultural Foundation

If the San Fernando Valley were to have its own brand of high society, its epitome would be a major party that was elegant, sophisticated and homespun all at the same time. So said Luke Bandle Saturday night. Bandle is general manager of the Cultural Foundation, the organization that is raising money to build a complex of performing arts halls in the Valley.

An 89-year-old La Mesa man seeking to recover an Impressionist masterpiece seized from his Jewish family by the Nazis has the right to sue Spain and the cultural foundation that has the painting on display at a Madrid museum, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. Claude Cassirer, who fled Nazi Germany as a youth, said he was delighted by the 9-2 decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals clearing the ownership dispute for trial. But he expressed concern about the long legal road still ahead.

A"prime suspect," in fund-raising parlance, is someone who will donate millions of dollars. Any fund-raising organization needs a number of prime suspects in its ranks, fund-raisers say. These kinds of members not only give, they have wealthy friends who give, too. The San Fernando Valley's Cultural Foundation has only one such person. The foundation's fund-raising director refers to this man, multimillionaire car dealer Bert Boeckmann, as "our angel." But Boeckmann may not be enough.

IN the old days, this was a swell place to be a pirate and a terrible place to be a witch. That was back when this wind-scoured Caribbean port was a hub of the Inquisition and the Spanish Empire's gold trade in the New World. Between 1610 and 1811, hundreds of sorcerers, blasphemers and other hapless heretics met gruesome fates here.

I am totally in favor of what the Cultural Foundation intends to build for an Arts Park. Mrs. J.E. METSCHAN Calabasas

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $60,000 to the Cultural Foundation, a San Fernando Valley group that is trying to build a cultural center in the Sepulveda Basin. The grant will help pay for a design competition that will provide architectural plans for the center by early summer, officials said. The Cultural Foundation envisions an "Arts Park L.A."

A long-delayed campaign to build large cultural facilities in Woodland Hills and Encino has been bolstered by $20,000 in corporate grants, a campaign official has announced. Luke Bandle, general manager of the Woodland Hills-based Cultural Foundation, said the nonprofit fund-raising group has received a $15,000 grant from the Union Bank Corp. and $5,000 grant from the California Community Foundation.

Does the Valley need the proposed arts park in the Sepulveda Basin? The answer is yes, we desperately need facilities here in the San Fernando Valley like the one proposed by the Cultural Foundation. It will give the Valley a focal point and be a wonderful place for the residents to go with their friends and families to watch artists at work as well as participate in the artistic process themselves. ANNE M. LEHRER Tarzana

The Cultural Foundation, a private group that hopes to build an arts center in Sepulveda Basin, has appointed five new members to its board of directors, bringing the total to 28 members. Perhaps the best known of the newcomers is Rafer Johnson, the 1960 Olympic gold medalist who also lit the Olympic torch to begin the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

The Warner Park Assn. represents residents in the community who have gone on record as being opposed to the development of multiple structures in Warner Park. Requests for consideration of the residents' concerns have fallen on deaf ears with our elected representative. The association was informed of a meeting to be held between representatives of the Valley Cultural Center, the Cultural Foundation and an architect who has been retained to prepare plans for a permanent stage to be constructed in Warner Park.

Now this is an island to get marooned on. Five major museums spanning the history of art, each linked by subterranean passageways offering hints of the treasures above. A colonnaded walkway enclosing a grassy courtyard, all lapped by the lazy flow of Berlin's Spree River. Finally on the mend after six decades that witnessed bombings, lootings and division, the once-glorious Museum Island is proving that art does triumph over adversity.

Your July 14 editorial opposing the proposed site for Arts Park L.A. ("Site Spoils Plan for Arts Park") suggested that proponents of the project were single-minded in their pursuit of the Sepulveda Basin site, and that it was time to look for another location. The Times has clearly shown in this editorial that it does not understand the Arts Park project and the history of the effort to build it.

With the numerous positive spins that could have been addressed to the proposed Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park, your staff writer appears to equivocate ("Plans for Valley Theater Linked to Area's Revival," Aug. 7). Without clarifying their credentials as cost-effective managers, he invokes support of seasoned arts administrators who indicate that operational costs may exceed the budget. He also cites Los Angeles city estimates from an "unknown source" that indicate the Madrid Theatre's operational cost may exceed the budget.

A group of San Fernando Valley business owners and arts patrons has once again responded to public criticism by agreeing to scale down its proposal for an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin. The Cultural Foundation eliminated an outdoor amphitheater and performance glen from its once-sprawling project, Arts Park L.A., which still calls for a theater, museum and various workshops to be erected along the basin's northern edge.

A group of San Fernando Valley business owners and arts patrons has once again responded to public criticism by agreeing to scale down its proposal for an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin. The Cultural Foundation eliminated an outdoor amphitheater and performance glen from its once-sprawling project, Arts Park L.A., which still calls for a theater, museum and various workshops to be erected along the basin's northern edge.

Dramatic winter floods and a torrent of public protest have persuaded a private San Fernando Valley group to scale down its proposal for a sprawling arts center in the Sepulveda Basin. The businessmen and community leaders of the Cultural Foundation had been planning their Arts Park L.A. as an elegant, 60-acre complex of theaters, museums and workshops bordering the basin's man-made lake.

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $60,000 to the Cultural Foundation, a Valley group that is trying to build a cultural center in the Sepulveda Basin, officials said Wednesday. The foundation applied for $100,000 of National Endowment for the Arts money more than a year ago. The grant money will help pay for a design competition that will provide architectural plans for the center by early summer, officials said. The Cultural Foundation envisions that Arts Park L.A.

A group of San Fernando Valley business owners and arts patrons has once again responded to public criticism by agreeing to scale down its proposal for an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin. The Cultural Foundation eliminated an outdoor amphitheater and performance glen from its once-sprawling project, Arts Park L.A., which still calls for a theater, museum and various workshops to be erected along the basin's northern edge.

Linda Kinnee has quit as executive director of the Cultural Foundation, a Woodland Hills private group that is attempting to finance and build an expansive arts center in the Sepulveda Basin. Kinnee, whose resignation is effective Saturday, will become executive director of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation. Ross Hopkins, a private consultant, has been named interim director of the foundation.

The Cultural Foundation, a private group that hopes to build an arts center in Sepulveda Basin, has appointed five new members to its board of directors, bringing the total to 28 members. Perhaps the best known of the newcomers is Rafer Johnson, the 1960 Olympic gold medalist who also lit the Olympic torch to begin the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.