Last year the Sunnyvale Arts Commission recommended that the gallery be closed, and the city council made the final decision during last year's budget process. At the time, the commission cited high costs, including a one-time $15,000 repair bill for new lighting and a yearly $30,000 fee for staffing as the reason for closing the city's gallery.

But it turns out the price of repairing the gallery's faulty, outdated lighting system is drastically lower than originally estimated. Instead of $15,000, the repairs will cost between $6,000 and $9,000 according to a recent department of parks and recreation investigation.

In addition, Parks and Recreation Director Robert Walker said an outside group has approached the city and is interested in taking over operations of the studio.

Walker said the World Council for Arts and Culture, working with Peninsula Open Studios, is interested but will have to wait—like any other interested group—for the council to study the issue and vote to reopen the gallery. Closing it was part of its cost-saving efforts.

Former Arts Commission Chairman Dane Andrew Beezley—who finished his term in June—championed the cause of reopening the gallery and even started a new group, the Friends of the Gallery, to fight for it.

During his last meeting on the commission, Beezley asked for the repair prices to be studied as part of looking into reopening the gallery.

"Really what I needed was to find out what the actual cost for the electrical was going to be, so now I can take it before the council," Beezley said. "I have a feeling they're going to be quite supportive of it when they actually see the plans and see that the money involved has gone down."

But even with lower repair figures, Walker said the reopening of the gallery is not certain, because the $15,000 was only one of the many factors.

"While the electrical problems were not the only reason for the gallery being put on the chopping block, it is definitely one of the factors keeping it from being reopened," Walker said.

The city cut it because the costs of running it was too high, so if it were to be reopened, there would have to be outside funding or a reorganization of how it is run.

To offset the costs of repairs and staffing, Beezley said he has lined up several local organizations—including the Arts Council of Silicon Valley—interested in helping run the gallery. That may entail hiring workers or providing volunteers to staff it during events.

In addition, Beezley said the Arts Council has offered to provide half the funding to repair the lighting system if a match can be found.

Walker said these factors are important to the outcome of any possible council decision, but nothing will happen immediately. The art council will study the reopening issue in October, and forward it—if found worthy—to the council for examination as a study issue in November. If the council decides that there is sufficient means to reopen the gallery, reopening could be approved. But before that, Beezley or the interested parties will have to convince the commission and council that the cause is a worthy one.