That group? The Sunnyvale Arts Commission. The enemy? Sunnyvale's 2004­05 fiscal year budget.

A one-page, easily overlooked recommendation in Sunnyvale's proposed 2004­05 budget could save the city some $15,000, at the expense of the arts commission, a possibility Beezley, his fellow commissioners and several city council members spoke against at the June 1 council meeting.

The proposed cut might have slipped through unnoticed if the commissioners hadn't shown up at City Hall to fight it.

By cutting the commission, Beezley says, the city could be damaging quality of life in Sunnyvale, because the arts commission approves public art projects as well as art on all private developments in town.

"Part of our role is to bring things to the community that people can enjoy, things that can actually help improve the quality of life in Sunnyvale," Beezley said.

Councilman Otto Lee said art helps bring a sense of life to buildings in town, something that will be needed when construction begins downtown.

"If you just design a building without any art, there's no soul, it's just construction," Lee said.

The recommendation became the focus of discussion at the June 1 council meeting, after several arts commissioners spoke up.

Beezley—along with the rest of the arts commission—was on hand at the meeting to speak against dissolving the group, a sentiment echoed by several council members.

Regardless of the support shown for the commission at the meeting, the council could not act on it, because the item was just part of a public hearing, but they could choose to take action at the June 15 budget approval.

"I think it would be a mistake to let it go," Monica Draganowski Davis, vice chairwoman of the arts commission, said. "A city this size, this prominent, needs an arts commission."

The suggestion in the budget is to merge the arts commission with the parks and recreation commission, because both commissions are part of the Department of Parks and Recreation. By doing so, around $15,000 could be saved, because the city would not have to produce materials for the monthly meetings or pay staff members to assist the commissioners.

But Beezley said merging the two commissions is not a simple process, because members of each are selected for their expertise in that given field.

Lee agreed, saying that each commission is put together for a specific, focused purpose, and the parks and recreation commission—while excellent in its realm of expertise—would not be able to do the job as well.

Beezley is an actor who has also worked as a professional photographer in Sunnyvale and continues to work in the movie industry. Davis has done marketing for artists' groups since she was in college.

By requiring parks and recreation commissioners to make arts-related decisions—that have been made by the arts commission since its inception in 1982—Beezley says the city runs the risk of making uneducated arts decisions.

"If you dissolve one commission, you're going to have people making decisions that they aren't qualified to be making," Beezley said.

One option—supported by the parks and recreation and arts commissioners and the city council—is to reduce the parks and recreation commission meetings to once a month. This would effectively cut the same number of meetings and time needed to preserve the arts meetings while allowing both groups to continue to function.

"There are certainly things that we must do to save money, and I think that having the parks and recreation commission meet once a month is something that we should look at," Lee said.

At previous meetings, both commissions voted to recommend that action to the council.

The arts commissioners are selected by the council to serve as advisers on matters related to art in the city and to review the parks and recreation budget for art-related projects.

"I think we have a really great group of people on the arts commission, and we should continue to support them and find a way to get them the resources they need so they can continue to do what they've been doing," Lee said.