Here’s a modest proposal:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should take part of the Cultural Affairs Department grants budget and give the money to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and other presenters and producers of commercial TV programming.

After all, these upstanding and altruistic organizations probably employ more Los Angeles-based artists than all of those measly little arts groups that traditionally receive Cultural Affairs grants. And just think of the size of the audience reached by the TV networks!

Sure, the networks face increasing competition for that audience from cable and the Internet - but isn’t that yet another reason to support this sagging L.A.-centered industry with Cultural Affairs nickels and dimes? Aren’t the networks a part of our culture? So shouldn’t they be subsidized by Cultural Affairs?

Well, no. The Cultural Affairs Department - and arts funding in general - usually defines “culture” a little more specifically. At least theoretically, Cultural Affairs grants should support nonprofit groups that do the kind of labor-intensive, community-specific, sometimes developmental work that could never pay for itself, even if it draws sell-out crowds.

In the performing arts - which are my primary concern at LA Stage Watch - most of these efforts are live, not pre-recorded. Because of this, the size of the audience at any individual performance is limited to a figure somewhat short of a mass media TV program. But this live quality also endows the city with distinctive experiences that can’t be obtained elsewhere, that can’t be downloaded or rented.

Yet Mayor Villaraigosa ignores these considerations in his recent proposal to take $415,000 out of the Cultural Affairs budget for 2010-11 and instead parcel it out to four organizations of his own choosing. His rationale is that his favored groups “would reach a bigger public,” according to Mike Boehm in the Times. He would give:

$250,000 to Channel 36, one of the city’s two cable TV stations,

$75,000 to El Grito, a Mexican Independence Day celebration (in other words, it lasts only one day),

$45,000 each to the Pan African Film Festival and the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.

El Grito is the only one of these that’s likely to focus on live performances. But I’d like to offer a nod to one of the other groups. In Mike Boehm’s first report on this proposal in The Times, one of the most interesting sentences was the last, attributed to Cultural Affairs director Olga Garay: “Of the four groups Villaraigosa wants to fund, only the Pan African festival has ever applied for a city cultural grant. It had been approved for $19,500 in the coming year.”

At least the Pan African Film Festival went through the process of applying for a peer-judged grant. The others didn’t even bother. Could they have somehow guessed that they didn’t need to apply, as long as the mayor was in their corner?

Meanwhile, most other groups whose time-consuming grant applications were tentatively approved through the peer-judging process (the final decisions will occur when the overall city budget is approved) will see their amounts diminished or even eliminated by the decision of the mayor to overrule the usual procedures. This reminds me of the recent controversy over the Pulitzer Prize for drama, in which the Pulitzer board awarded the prize to a play that wasn’t even one of the finalists selected by the jury of theater experts.

Let’s look at the arts groups Villaraigosa apparently prefers. The majority of his personally-directed funding would go to the city’s own Channel 36. I never tune in to Channel 36, so I examined its web site, www.la36.org, to see the scope of what it offers. Early this morning, the live feed showed two dancers in a pas de deux - as the channel neared the end of its all-night “Classic Arts Showcase” (from 1 am to 8 am).  But the arts appear to be primarily a wee-hours interest on Channel 36 - best suited for channel-surfing insomniacs.

A glance at the daytime and prime-time schedules revealed sports, cooking, author interviews, programs on environmental and self-help issues, Sunday morning religious shows. Also, the web site offers nineteen separate video “channels,” including channels for the Gay Men’s Chorus, “Live at the Ford” (although of course, it’s all pre-recorded, not live) and one called “Arts & Culture.”

Of the first 10 videos listed under “Arts & Culture,” only two appeared devoted to the arts. I clicked on the first, a student production of a Chekhov play, shot from what looked to be a faraway balcony. The tiny images of actors were almost inaudible, thanks to a loud musical track. This is considered theater? Theater doesn’t happen on a screen - it happens on a stage.

The second largest Villaraigosa bonus baby would be El Grito. All Access Entertainment, the company that will stage El Grito, also produced Fiesta Broadway last Sunday in downtown L.A. I strolled through Fiesta Broadway, enjoying the sight of pedestrians milling through the closed-off streets encircling the L.A. Times building and continuing a few blocks south on Broadway.  Three stages presented Latino musical acts, and more of the same will be offered at El Grito. However, the dozens of corporate booths seemed to attract even more attention than the musicians - especially those that handed out free samples. You should have seen the line for the Axe booth.

If you go to www.allaccess.la/elgrito.html, you’ll see that the first words, under the El Grito date of September 15, are these: “L.A.’s ulitmate [sic] ‘Latino Power’ B2B VIP Gala is available for corporate sponsorship and exhibiting. Private VIP gala with L.A. City Council & Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.” In other words, the mayor himself is one of the featured attractions, at least for those who get into the “private” gala, no doubt including those corporate sponsors and exhibitors. If this is a place for corporations to show off and mingle with the mayor and council members, what’s the connection to Cultural Affairs? Why should arts groups have to suffer because of it?

This isn’t a battle between Latino arts and everyone else. Latino arts groups that aren’t on the Mayor’s list are likely to lose funding, too, just like the other Cultural Affairs recipients who played by the rules.

Villaraigosa’s attempt to reward his favorites would set a dangerous precedent. As Arts for LA has pointed out, arts groups could feel compelled to lobby the mayor instead of going through the established, equitable route toward grants.

Meanwhile, the Villaraigosa Administration has put forward another questionable proposal as a cost-cutting measure. It would charge the groups who contractually operate city-owned facilities as much as half the market value of the rent instead of the $1 a year deals that many of them have. At least a half-dozen theater companies could be affected. If one of those - the Latino Theater Company that runs Los Angeles Theatre Center — were seriously affected, the impact could reach the other companies that use LATC, such as Playwrights’ Arena and the Robey Theatre.

In a crisis in which every city department is required to take a hit, the impulse behind this rental proposal is at least comprehensible. But the fact that it’s made in conjunction with Villaraigosa’s idea to reward his well-connected friends with special favors makes it all the more odious. If the mayor insists on diverting a $415,000 stash for his own personal discretion, he could at least use it to help some of these theater companies make the transition between $1 a year deals and higher rents. Otherwise, some of them might have to shut down - leaving the buildings empty or rented to commercial uses.

Still, most of the Mayor’s stash should be returned to the regular grants till, especially to support those groups that might otherwise be zeroed out of any money at all, if Villaraigosa were to get his way. If a group applied for a grant in good faith and its application was approved, it shouldn’t have to face the prospect that its only reward for completing that arduous process successfully might be plucked from its paltry grasp by an overreaching mayor. What’s the use of setting up an elaborate grants process if the mayor is going to run roughshod over it?

For links to City Council members who might help thwart the Mayor’s proposals, go to the Arts for LA web site at www.artsforla.org.