The City and College of the Canyons will continue their fiscal relationship to support the Performing Arts Center if a proposed Memorandum of Understanding is approved tomorrow night at a special joint meeting of the City Council and the college’s Board of Trustees.

According to the proposal, the City will pay the College $70,000 for the next two fiscal years. Of this sum, $20,000 will be applied toward the Managing Director’s salary, $15,000 will be applied to the shared Arts Grant Writer position and $35,000 will be applied towards deferred maintenance of the Performing Arts Center. For this contribution, the city will receive a list of 83 available dates for use by community groups, which they will coordinate. The MOU is scheduled to terminate on June 30, 2011.

The MOU on the table Wednesday night differs in one important area compared to the one that expired recently, in that the fiscal contributions from the city have increased and the dates available for community groups have decreased.

The city had previously committed $20,000 per year of support, which went toward the Managing Director’s salary. The new proposal continues an additional $15,000 financial contribution toward the Arts Grant Writer position, for which the city gets 25 percent of their time to work on city arts grants.

Another new element is the $35,000 annual contribution toward the upkeep of the facility. In an agenda report to the City Council on January 27, the college justified its position by pointing out the wear and tear by community groups: “Essentially, the College of substantially subsidizing the community groups by providing a state-of-the-art facility, without having the income source from for-profit rentals that similar performing arts centers utilize to cover the critical replacement and maintenance costs.”

For the City’s contributions, community arts groups will be allowed to schedule use of the facility for 25 percent of the time, as opposed to 32 percent of the time allowed in the old MOU. These dates are to be allocated after College of the Canyons’ Instruction Events (“Arts On Campus”), touring acts (“COC Presents”) and District-sponsored events are scheduled.

The meeting is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. It is open to the public and will be held in the Transit Maintenance Facility training room, 28250 Constellation Road in Santa Clarita.