Long Road Lies Ahead for Latino Museum

In the ongoing attempt to salvage the Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture, its board of trustees has restructured itself and accepted the resignation of board president and museum founding father Charles Calderon.

The financially strapped institution, which opened its doors in 1998, has not mounted an exhibition or presented other public programming since August, when claims surfaced indicating that the museum was out of money and owed nearly $500,000 to creditors and employees.

Board members now say that the museum has begun to reduce the debt and they remain optimistic about its future.

“Think of us as a rosebush in winter,” said longtime board member Juan Gomez-Quinones. “We are down to the very core part of the plant and we are ready to start sprouting again in the spring.”

New board members, who were appointed in late December, are Yvaniza Abaunza, an independent movie producer; David Maciel, professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Dominguez Hills; Carlos Haro, assistant dean of UCLA’s international programs; and Teresa McKenna, professor of English at USC.

Gomez-Quinones, a professor of history at UCLA; Anna Maria Araujo, former community relations officer for KNBC-TV; and Estanislao Sosa, president of digital content company Trifecta Content Group Inc., are holdovers from the previous board. A new board president has not yet been elected.

In a meeting with The Times at the shuttered museum, near the corner of 1st and Main streets in downtown Los Angeles, board members would not say whether Calderon stepped down voluntarily. The former state senator (D-Whittier) spearheaded the development and administration starting in the mid-1980s, and he was its primary overseer as the museum’s financial troubles unfolded.

“Part of his resigning was to allow us to move forward in a more positive direction,” Sosa said.

Calderon submitted his resignation Dec. 23. In his letter to the board, he called the Latino Museum a “dream” that he still wanted to see accomplished. Personal reasons, he wrote, prevented him from continuing in his position as board chairman. Calderon did not return repeated phone calls related to this story.

Board members say their first priority is to pay off the institution’s debt.

Since the museum closed, they’ve begun to chip away at the deficit using final installments owed the institution from various grants. In November, the museum paid $32,418 of the $112,945 it owes in back wages. The California labor commissioner, however, has 19 cases pending against the museum, and spokesman Dean Fryer said the agency is still preparing to file suit to obtain the remaining $80,527.

In the next few weeks, the board hopes to extend a lease with the parking-lot company that operates on property behind the museum. The resulting upfront payment, they say, will clear most of the remaining debt, now approximately $400,000.

In the meantime, board members are floating ideas for ways to reopen the museum in a limited fashion. One proposal is to rent space in the building for a screening room for young Latino filmmakers. As yet, however, there is no staff in place and no schedule for reopening the museum on a regular basis.

Calderon began seeking state support for the development of a Latino culture and art museum in the mid-1980s, at one point, to the tune of $10 million. Instead, in 1989, the museum got $300,000 in seed money from the state. A decade later, when the museum finally opened, it was still financed primarily by government grants, with Calderon citing a fund-raising goal of $13 million. However, the museum never hired a full-time fund-raiser, and its director at the time of the opening, Denise Lugo, a former college professor, had no previous experience in museum administration or fund-raising.

The museum’s recent financial problems first came to light when employees complained of delayed paychecks and creditors, including a printer and a security firm, began pressing for payment of overdue bills. At the time, Calderon said the museum was relying on the California Legislature to change the terms of $1.6 million in allocations to the museum made in the 1999 and 2000 state budgets. By law, state arts allocations can only be used for educational programs or capital expenses--not for operating expenses. Former Assemblyman Martin Gallegos (D-Baldwin Park) sponsored a bill to exempt the Latino Museum grants. The bill passed, but Gov. Gray Davis vetoed it in September, saying it set an “unacceptable precedent.”

The state had already been alerted to financial problems at the museum. In February 2000, a former consultant to the museum filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office, which oversees nonprofit organizations, asking for an investigation and citing mismanagement of funds.

The attorney general’s office forwarded the complaint to the state Department of Education, which had administered nearly $1.2 million in state grants to the museum starting in 1998. An Education Department audit found that the museum was “in accordance with the grant provisions and approved budgets.”

Another complaint was filed in November by artists and others interested in the museum’s success. However, according to the Department of Education, a second audit is not planned.

Gomez-Quinones insists that the museum’s financial crisis was due to a lack of oversight and planning. “There is no mystery and there is nothing under the table,” he said. “People conducted activities on credit, and somebody eventually came and called the credit. They were under the impression that the state would come through with the money--however unrealistic that might have been.”

In addition, board members acknowledged they met infrequently and said they were “kept in the dark” about the museum’s finances.

“It’s very clear that in the future we will have to exert far more fiscal management and accountability and that the museum will have to operate differently,” said McKenna. In addition to its financial problems, the museum may have to relocate. The city of Los Angeles is exploring the possibility of buying the property along the east side of Main Street between 1st and 2nd streets. In a land-swap deal, the city would exchange it for earthquake-damaged buildings and property currently owned by Caltrans on the north side of Main Street. Caltrans would build a new headquarters at the current museum site; the city would create a park on part of the old Caltrans property.

“Our stand right now is that we would not sell the building to get out of debt,” said Sosa, acknowledging that the city could invoke eminent domain, leaving them no option. “Later on, if the city is going to rebuild, then we would certainly do it but we want to do it from a position of strength. Being in the hole and getting anything we can for the building is the worst thing we can do.”

The board members acknowledge that they have a long way to go before they can reopen the museum’s doors. Not the least of their problems is an uphill public-relations battle.

Margaret Garcia, an artist who asked the state in November to reinvestigate the museum, sums up the frustration of many in the Latino community and beyond: “How come we have nothing to show for the money that has been spent?” she said.