In response to Shields' letter

Reading the letter to the editor from Darby Shields, president of the High Street Theatre Foundation, reminded me of listening to a child who has told a fanciful story so many times that they actually begin to believe it. Unfortunately, intentionally misrepresenting the truth has long been the modus operandi of the foundation and it is time that the people of Moorpark understood this.

When the foundation was first starting, I attended the meetings and was very much in support of the proposed foundation. However, I soon saw the group drifting from their stated purpose and asked directly whether the goal of the foundation was, as published, to "save the theatre" by encouraging the city of Moorpark to purchase it, or to be merely a producing entity. The response I received was that they intended to do both.

These are not only incompatible goals, but the goal of being primarily a producing entity was never presented publicly. In fact, the consultant hired by the foundation advised them that a foundation is not, and should not be, a producing entity, advice the foundation ignored. Unfortunately, the foundation has made much graver mistakes than ignoring the advice of their own consultant. They have consistently misrepresented themselves to the people of Moorpark.

Over the past several years the foundation has solicited donations for the High Street Theatre, now known as the High Street Arts Center, yet has never given any funds to the theater other than to pay rental fees as any outside group must do.

In fact, their own website indicates that they have been a nonprofit since January 2005 even though they did not become registered until well after that date. This means that the "tax deductible donations" they solicited and received were not only solicited under false pretenses, they weren't even actually tax deductible.

Mr. Shields wrote "the theater manager and her city hall supervisors have restricted use of the venue to the plays underwritten by the city with little or no consideration for other organizations in Moorpark."

Clearly, Mr. Shields has not been paying attention to what has been produced at the High Street Arts Center as there have been a number of productions at the theatre put on by outside groups, as well as several coproductions brought in to the theatre. It would seem that the only group that Mr. Shields is interested in is his own group.

The foundation has recently advertised that they are going to be presenting the Ojai film festival at Moorpark College. While there was an initial exploratory meeting about this, there is no agreement in place to actually hold the festival at the college.

In fact, Mr. Shields took some faculty from the college to see the theatre; however, when college representatives repeatedly expressed excitement over holding the festival at the High Street Arts Center, Mr. Shields never once mentioned the foundation was not associated with the theatre and merely tap danced around the issue by proposing that it would be nice to hold the festival at the college. As of this letter, talks with the college are still only in the exploratory stages, so Mr. Shield's pronouncements about the festival are more than a little premature.

While I understand the foundation's desire to garner public support in order to produce their pet projects, conducting a campaign of misinformation is a shortsighted way to accomplish that goal.

I trust that the people of Moorpark will see through the deception of the foundation and get behind the High Street Arts Center, rather than the group which masquerades behind a similar sounding name but only serves its own purposes. Rolland C. Petrello Professor, Moorpark College