Olga Garay

This is part of a series of occasional articles observing newly arrived cultural figures as they seek to get the lay of the land in Southern California. -- LATE IN the afternoon you might imagine that Olga Garay, the executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, is primping for an L.A. Phil concert at Disney Hall, an art opening on Wilshire Boulevard or a premiere at the Ahmanson. Instead, she clutches the steering wheel and fights surface street traffic getting to San Pedro for a 6 p.m. appointment.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't agree with a proposal floated by the city's chief fiscal officer calling for eliminating government support for the arts as a way to address a $404-million budget shortfall, a top aide said Monday. Miguel Santana, the city administrative officer, suggested saving $10.7 million by doing away with the Department of Cultural Affairs as one of three options for the arts included in a wide-ranging, 219-page memo he sent to the mayor and City Council leaders on Friday with his ideas for closing the funding gap. The least drastic measure Santana offered calls for $1.3 million in savings while preserving all of the department's current functions, which include making grants to arts organizations and individual artists, partially funding community festivals, and running a network of cultural landmarks and neighborhood arts centers and theaters.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is interested in stepping into the breach as curator and conservator of the Watts Towers starting this summer as a severe budget crisis saps the city of Los Angeles' ability to continue those functions. Olga Garay, executive director of L.A.'s Department of Cultural Affairs, said she had "a very encouraging meeting" Monday with two top museum officials, LACMA President Melody Kanschat and general counsel Fredric Goldstein, over enlisting the museum's know-how and fundraising connections on behalf of a national historic landmark that's owned by the state and operated and maintained by the city.

City officials who had hoped to save more than $1 million a year by outsourcing nine neighborhood arts facilities to private, nonprofit operators have bowed to community objections and decided to privatize only four. Now they have to find public dollars to keep the arts centers open for the rest of this fiscal year and into the future. Four of the sites share Hollywood's Barnsdall Park with its most famous attraction, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House. With the unanimous vote last week, the coun-cil sacrificed $400,000 to $500,000 in projected annual savings there.

L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art is interested in running the city-owned Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Hollywood's Barnsdall Park, as the cash-starved city government tries to outsource eight arts facilities in hopes of saving about $1.3 million a year. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch has toured the 10,000-square-foot gallery with curators on his staff, said Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. She expects MOCA to submit a proposal to run the venerable gallery, which was established in 1951 and has occupied its current hilltop building near Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House since the early 1970s.

Los Angeles County's three biggest government-supported cultural institutions figure to reap $60 million in taxpayer funding for the coming 2009-10 fiscal year, their subsidies holding up well despite falling property values and other recession-spurred declines in tax receipts that are draining public coffers. Public libraries and county and municipal arts agencies didn't fare as well in the county budget proposal released Monday, or in the city of Los Angeles spending plan just issued by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Pending the approval of the City Council, Mayor Villaraigosa has named Olga Garay to head the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. Most recently, Garay, 54, has been a New York-based independent producer and performing arts consultant. She is working with the Lincoln Center Festival in Manhattan to present Spanish-language theater. She is also involved in strategic planning for New York's Museo del Barrio and other arts groups.

The Los Angeles City Council scrounged for money Wednesday to help keep the city's network of 25 neighborhood arts centers above water amid the current municipal budget deluge. Among the most promising ideas: changing current law to tap into a fund of $5 million created by the city's charging itself a 1% arts fee for every government-funded capital construction project. Rules call for that money to be used to buy artworks for public spaces and to pay for new cultural facilities.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's new role as conservator of the Watts Towers has brought an almost immediate payoff: a $500,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation, announced Wednesday, to help fund repair and preservation of the landmark folk-art masterpiece. "We're thrilled," said Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the towers and recently struck a trial one-year agreement with LACMA for conservation and help with promoting the towers to prospective visitors and funders.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously shot down a proposal Wednesday that would have eliminated guaranteed city funding for the arts, after listening to often-impassioned pleas during a public hearing on cutting government services and jobs in the face of a municipal budget crisis. The council also showed no appetite for a recommendation by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana that would have erased the $4 million arts grants program. Olga Garay, executive director of the Department of Cultural Affairs, said she would try to find at least $500,000 in savings in her current budget, as Santana has proposed.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's new role as conservator of the Watts Towers has brought an almost immediate payoff: a $500,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation, announced Wednesday, to help fund repair and preservation of the landmark folk-art masterpiece. "We're thrilled," said Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the towers and recently struck a trial one-year agreement with LACMA for conservation and help with promoting the towers to prospective visitors and funders.

L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art is interested in running the city-owned Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Hollywood's Barnsdall Park, as the cash-starved city government tries to outsource eight arts facilities in hopes of saving about $1.3 million a year. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch has toured the 10,000-square-foot gallery with curators on his staff, said Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. She expects MOCA to submit a proposal to run the venerable gallery, which was established in 1951 and has occupied its current hilltop building near Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House since the early 1970s.

More than 300 Los Angeles arts organizations that had faced cuts in their city-funded grants are now likely to receive a full share after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's decision to drop his controversial plan to take $415,000 from the arts grant budget and give the money to four other cultural organizations he had picked himself. "We were overzealous," Ben Ceja, deputy mayor for budget and finance, told the City Council committee that has examined the mayor's budget proposal with each department head, in preparation for making recommendations to the full council.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is interested in stepping into the breach as curator and conservator of the Watts Towers starting this summer as a severe budget crisis saps the city of Los Angeles' ability to continue those functions. Olga Garay, executive director of L.A.'s Department of Cultural Affairs, said she had "a very encouraging meeting" Monday with two top museum officials, LACMA President Melody Kanschat and general counsel Fredric Goldstein, over enlisting the museum's know-how and fundraising connections on behalf of a national historic landmark that's owned by the state and operated and maintained by the city.

The Los Angeles City Council scrounged for money Wednesday to help keep the city's network of 25 neighborhood arts centers above water amid the current municipal budget deluge. Among the most promising ideas: changing current law to tap into a fund of $5 million created by the city's charging itself a 1% arts fee for every government-funded capital construction project. Rules call for that money to be used to buy artworks for public spaces and to pay for new cultural facilities.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously shot down a proposal Wednesday that would have eliminated guaranteed city funding for the arts, after listening to often-impassioned pleas during a public hearing on cutting government services and jobs in the face of a municipal budget crisis. The council also showed no appetite for a recommendation by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana that would have erased the $4 million arts grants program. Olga Garay, executive director of the Department of Cultural Affairs, said she would try to find at least $500,000 in savings in her current budget, as Santana has proposed.

City officials who had hoped to save more than $1 million a year by outsourcing nine neighborhood arts facilities to private, nonprofit operators have bowed to community objections and decided to privatize only four. Now they have to find public dollars to keep the arts centers open for the rest of this fiscal year and into the future. Four of the sites share Hollywood's Barnsdall Park with its most famous attraction, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House. With the unanimous vote last week, the coun-cil sacrificed $400,000 to $500,000 in projected annual savings there.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't agree with a proposal floated by the city's chief fiscal officer calling for eliminating government support for the arts as a way to address a $404-million budget shortfall, a top aide said Monday. Miguel Santana, the city administrative officer, suggested saving $10.7 million by doing away with the Department of Cultural Affairs as one of three options for the arts included in a wide-ranging, 219-page memo he sent to the mayor and City Council leaders on Friday with his ideas for closing the funding gap. The least drastic measure Santana offered calls for $1.3 million in savings while preserving all of the department's current functions, which include making grants to arts organizations and individual artists, partially funding community festivals, and running a network of cultural landmarks and neighborhood arts centers and theaters.

Los Angeles County's three biggest government-supported cultural institutions figure to reap $60 million in taxpayer funding for the coming 2009-10 fiscal year, their subsidies holding up well despite falling property values and other recession-spurred declines in tax receipts that are draining public coffers. Public libraries and county and municipal arts agencies didn't fare as well in the county budget proposal released Monday, or in the city of Los Angeles spending plan just issued by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

This is part of a series of occasional articles observing newly arrived cultural figures as they seek to get the lay of the land in Southern California. -- LATE IN the afternoon you might imagine that Olga Garay, the executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, is primping for an L.A. Phil concert at Disney Hall, an art opening on Wilshire Boulevard or a premiere at the Ahmanson. Instead, she clutches the steering wheel and fights surface street traffic getting to San Pedro for a 6 p.m. appointment.