Grants

The Getty Foundation will award $3.1 million in grants to 26 arts institutions for their roles in "Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980," a bonanza of exhibitions coming to Southern California in fall 2011. The grants nearly double the foundation's financial commitment to the exhibitions. Most of the grants, to be announced today at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood, will support art shows and catalogs initiated by an earlier, $3.6-million round of Getty research and planning grants.

The Laguna Playhouse has received its first Shubert Foundation grant, a $5,000 award for general operating expenses. The prestigious New York-based foundation, which earmarks all its grants for operations, was established in 1945 by the Shubert theater organization, which owns and operates 21 theaters around the country. Its mission is to sustain and advance the performing arts, American theater in particular.

Five Orange County police departments--Buena Park, Fountain Valley, Irvine, La Habra and Westminster--will share $797,000 in federal grants aimed at upgrading computers and freeing officers from administrative duties so they can spend more time patrolling the streets. The program, now in its third year, gives agencies money to hire civilian employees as administrators, freeing officers for patrols and community-oriented service.

Southern California schools have been shut out of a high-profile federal grant competition, according to results announced Tuesday. The one regional finalist for the latest round of Race to the Top grants was a charter school organization, Green Dot Public Schools, that could have received $30 million. But its bid fell just short. The charter's proposal included expanding student wellness centers to provide social, physical and mental health services in support of academics; purchasing new technology, including tablet computers; and instituting a system to track and support high school graduates in college.

The City Council will decide Monday how it will distribute $8 million in federal community development block grant funds. The city's Human Relations Commission evaluated requests for funding from dozens of community groups and has recommended that the biggest chunk--$250,000--go to the Santa Ana Police Department for its helicopter program. The commission also suggested the city dedicate $199,000 for Santa Ana's P.R.I.D.E.

The city may revise its guidelines about what types of information people must provide to receive federal grants and no-interest loans, responding to concerns from residents that such funds may be benefiting illegal immigrants. Local activists questioned the city's procedures for distributing the federal benefits and requested that recipients be required to show proof of citizenship. Their request was prompted by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

Eight nonprofit organizations--with projects ranging from cleaning medians to painting a mural--will receive the first funds from the West Valley NeighborGood Grant Program, Councilwoman Laura Chick has announced. The NeighborGood awards, established by the councilwoman last year with city funds and contributions from private donors, is modeled after a Seattle program, said Chick, who represents much of the West Valley. The first set of grants, awarded in a competitive process, totals $13,000.

At a time when California's recession-plagued economy has inflicted budget-cutting miseries on every part of its public education system, some of the state's most innovative schools soon will get money to try out their reform ideas. The first installments of a $100-million state grant program will arrive with the new year at 138 schools, Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, said Wednesday.

The Costa Mesa City Council on Monday released a $30,000 grant to South Coast Repertory that was withheld two weeks ago because of a complaint about a flyer the Tony Award-winning company distributed voicing its support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mary-Linn Hughes of Huntington Beach will keep teaching photography to AIDS patients with a $20,800, two-year Artists in Residence grant approved Friday by the California Arts Council in Sacramento. The money will enable Hughes to continue Open Portraits, a program that primarily involves self-portraiture, at Laguna Shanti, a Laguna Beach-based AIDS service organization.