Just days before the end of its fortieth-anniversary year, Beyond Baroque finally signed a lease with the Los Angeles City Council that will allow the literary nonprofit organization to remain at 681 Valencia Boulevard for the next twenty-five years. "We are grateful to the City, 11th District Councilman Bill Rosendahl and his staff, and to all the many, many people who helped make this historic day possible," Beyond Baroque director Fred Dewey wrote in an e-mail.
The finalized lease, which was signed on December 22, brings to an end nearly a year of uncertainty. In February the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to approve a twenty-five-year extension of its lease, but six months later the lease remained unsigned and the organization feared that it would expire and be auctioned to other nonprofits.
More good news came to Beyond Baroque two weeks ago when an anonymous L.A. artist donated twenty thousand dollars to the organization. And last week the nonprofit announced an expansion of its board. Among the eight new board members are Elaine Katzenberger, executive director of City Lights Bookstore and Publishers in San Francisco, and Paul Sawyer, cofounder of the Poets Union in Berkeley, California.
"An institution with an amazing history just got a little more amazing," Dewey said in a statement.
