After reporting on two layoffs at the Long Beach Museum of Art last week, The District Weekly’s Dave Wielenga again visits the beautiful ocean bluff museum – truly one of the city’s jewels – that today finds itself mired in an economic stranglehold.
Not that the LBMA just tripped and fell onto hard times.
Wielenga notes the $3 million bond that the museum failed to pay by the due date this September, leaving Long Beach taxpayers on the hook. Consequently, the City Council slashed museum funding, and here we find ourselves with a museum facing more layoffs and difficult financial decisions.
The article calls – nay, pleads – for strict financial restructuring and suggests ways for it to maintain revenue growth and increase its presence in the community. That would all be for the best, but the City still has a bitter taste when it comes to the museum due to a few issues that the article does not address.
Namely, that a 2008 report from City Auditor Laura Doud found that the museum had misspent nearly $1.6 million that was supposed to be earmarked for that bond repayment. She also discovered that two masterpiece paintings – each worth between $200k-300k – had simply been lost. Also left out of the article was the City’s threat to sell off some of the art, the profits of which would have gone to the debt repayment.
That ended up not happening, but it brings us to where we are today, with the LBMA facing a budget slash and some very difficult decisions. Wielenga does an excellent job of bringing us all up to speed. Check it out, and let us know what you think in the Comments below.
Disclosure: lbpost.com co-founder Shaun Lumachi is under contract with the Office of the Long Beach City Auditor.