On: September 27 at 04:10 PM
A group led by Stockton Mayor Ed Chavez and former Mayor Gary Podesto has announced that it’s working toward the construction of a new arts center in the city.
The announcement came at a Sept. 27 editorial board meeting of The Record. Chavez said the group will hold a “gala event” May 31, 2007 at the Bob Hope Theatre to build support for the project and raise money for local arts organizations, including the Stockton Symphony, Stockton Chorale and the Haggin Museum.
Chavez said the group was close to signing a headlining performer for the event, but he wouldn’t give a name.
Other group members include Haggin Museum director Tod Ruhstaller and Peter Jaffe, the Stockton Symphony’s conductor and Stockton Opera’s musical director, as well as others in the local arts community. Chavez said the group’s goal is to raise a total of $600,000 at the gala event for the organizations.
“It’s something we’re all really jazzed about,” Jaffe said. “We’ve really got some class acts right here in town.”
The group wants to study the feasibility of building an arts center for those acts. No details have been finalized, but it has discussed a facility that would house a theater as well as gallery space for the visual arts.
“We’re talking about a completion date that’s several years away,” Jaffe said, adding that he expected that the theater would be open to performers from a variety of genres, including Latin music and hip-hop.
The group has not determined who would pay for the arts center’s construction, where it would be located or how much it would cost. It hopes to raise enough money to create an endowment that would be used to maintain the facility.
“Certainly I want the city to be involved. To what extent, I don’t know,” Chavez said.
The arts center idea is not new. Visual artists in Stockton have talked about constructing an arts center in the past. Modesto opened the $48 million Gallo Center for the Arts on Sept. 27; the $14 million Grand Theatre Center for the Arts in Tracy opened Sept. 14.
The group said it did not believe the facilities would compete with an arts center in Stockton.
Stockton artist and filmmaker Sophoan Sorn, 22, said he would want a local arts center to reflect the diversity of the city’s population. Sorn has been spearheading a separate drive to build a local arts center; he was slated to meet with Chavez during the afternoon of Sept. 27 to talk about joining the mayor’s group.
“When things get built, will it be an Anglo facility, or one that represents the community?” Sorn said.
But even if the center is never built, it still may benefit the local arts community. Sorn said he hopes the project will bring the local arts community together to work towards common goals.
“This is about a community effort to empower ourselves,” he said. “We’ve got to work together make this a reality.”
UPDATE: Sorn later called and said that he had joined the Chavez-Podesto group. He emphasized, however, that he would continue to make the arts center initative a grassroots project that involves the entire community.
