Downsized arts center closer to reality in Lode

By Dana M. Nichols – Record Staff Writer – July 01, 2013

SAN ANDREAS – A design for a smaller, 300-seat performing arts center at Calaveras High School could come before Calaveras Unified School District trustees as soon as Aug. 6, trustees decided this week.

Trustees in January killed plans to build a $5.4 million, 500-seat performance hall after a board majority concluded it was too expensive and would have required the district to borrow part of the money. That January vote was a 3-2 split, with only trustees Sherri Reusche and Zerrall McDaniel voting in favor.

Last week, however, board Chairwoman Karan Bowsher changed sides and voted with Reusche and McDaniel in favor of seeking to design a smaller arts center that would require no borrowing.

Bowsher said she believes building an arts center is “in the best interest of the district.” She also said that although her children are primarily engaged in athletics, she is a supporter of the arts and studied stage set design and lighting in college.

Like previous votes on the arts center proposal, last Tuesday’s session was emotional and exposed division within the board.

Trustees Gregory Gustafson and Evan Garamendi said they have concerns about the cost of building an arts center and that the $3.7 million in the school facilities fund could make needed improvements and repairs at all of the district’s schools rather than being spent on a single project.

“We can’t do both,” Garamendi said.

The vote to move forward with designing a smaller arts center was 3-1-1, with Garamendi opposed and Gustafson abstaining.

Boosters of the arts center said that the arts center was the main selling point that persuaded district voters in 2006 to approve taxing themselves to fund Measure A, a $13.5 million school bond issue.

District Superintendent Mark Campbell said that other projects were built first because those projects were able to leverage $8 million in additional state funding.

Bond-funded projects already completed include a swimming pool at Calaveras High, a library and classrooms at Valley Springs Elementary School, a new track and modernized classrooms at Toyon Middle School, and other improvements and repairs at district schools.

Advocates for the arts center argue the project is long overdue.

Calaveras High School graduate Katie Tanner said she had hoped to be part of band performances in a new arts center when she was a sophomore in high school. “I’m a junior in college now,” said Tanner, who is majoring in music education at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

Enrique Ramos, president of Calaveras Repertory Theater, said his nonprofit organization spends $10,000 a year to rent the performing arts hall at Bret Harte Union High School in Angels Camp.

Ramos said that 90 percent of the children who perform in his group’s twice-yearly stage productions come from the Valley Springs and San Andreas areas, and he’d prefer to use a performance hall closer to where they live.

“It would be a big mistake not to move forward,” Ramos said.

The initial concept for a smaller center calls for a thrust stage surrounded by curved, amphitheater-style seating.

“I’m extraordinarily excited by the preliminary design we’ve been given,” Bowsher said of the thrust stage. “It tends to be one of my favorite styles to work in.”

Campbell said there will be a public meeting July 23 on designing a smaller hall, and that the board could consider approving a design as soon as Aug. 6.

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at www.recordnet.com/calaverasblog.