Nava Opposes Plan to Help El Portal Theater : North Hollywood: The L.A. mayoral candidate says $250,000 in CRA funds should be redirected to city services.

Mayoral candidate Julian Nava announced Monday that he is opposed to the Community Redevelopment Agency’s plan to help refurbish the historic El Portal theater in North Hollywood.

“This is not a time to spend money on the arts,” Nava said of the CRA plan to provide $250,000 toward making the Art Deco landmark a live theater. He made the remarks at a press conference outside the now-dark El Portal.

“The number one priority should be the personal safety of the people of this city,” he said. “Why are we funding theater when people don’t even feel safe to go out at night?”

The issue of CRA support for the theater, which was approved by the agency’s board last week and awaits approval by the City Council, has failed to ignite much organized opposition. A group of North Hollywood residents against the CRA action was able to muster only eight supporters to come out for the press conference on a windy, rain-swept afternoon.

Nava will try to stir more interest through the use of one of 1992’s most popular campaign devices--an 800 number.

“During the next two weeks we want people to call my 800 number and register their opinion on the CRA funding,” he said. “We want to give them a chance to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this public subsidy.”

Nava, an ex-ambassador to Mexico who is now a professor of history at Cal State Northridge, announced his candidacy last month.

In an interview before the press conference, he said that during the current budget crunch, all arts funding should be subject to scrutiny. He proposed that $550,000 in the CRA’s cultural trust fund for the North Hollywood Redevelopment Project Area--from which the proposed El Portal funding would come--be liquidated and used instead for city services.

“No one is more a supporter of the arts than me,” Nava said, citing the fact that he is on the board of the La Sinfonica del Barrio orchestra. “But it’s a question of priorities.”

Current state law, however, prohibits city redevelopment funds from being used to support police or fire services, said CRA board member Dennis Luna.

“We couldn’t do that even if we wanted,” said Luna, who lives in Encino and has been a strong supporter of the proposal to reopen the El Portal, located on Lankershim Boulevard. “And in this area a one-time grant of $550,000 for police protection would not mean that much. We would give it once and then it would be gone.

“What we are talking about in this project is long-range improvements in what is now a blighted area with a lack of economic activity. If we can make the area better, less police will be needed.”

The CRA raises money by collecting taxes on buildings that have been improved, then uses the money in designated development areas. The 740-acre North Hollywood redevelopment area reserves 1% of the money it collects for its cultural trust.

If the El Portal project is approved, it would be the first funding made from the trust since it was begun in 1979.

The money would go to Actors Alley, which has been producing theater in North Hollywood for 21 years. In March, the troupe’s lease on the 99-seat converted storefront that now is its headquarters will expire and it is not renewable.

The proposed CRA funding would be in the form of a $50,000 grant and a $200,000 loan, payable over 10 years at 3% interest. The deal requires Actors Alley to raise $50,000 in a matching grant before it receives any of the funding.

Actors Alley officials plan to use the CRA funds to divide the El Portal into separate 199- and 99-seat auditoriums.

The renovation would make the El Portal, built as a vaudeville house in 1926 and later converted into a movie theater, the first live theater in the San Fernando Valley large enough to qualify for full Actors Equity union status since 1966.