Case Between Ben-Dor and Symphony Still Heated

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GISÈLE VS. SYMPHONY: It’s been running below the radar for several years, but now the suit by former Santa Barbara Symphony music director/conductor Gisèle Ben-Dor is about to heat up. Her arbitration action, charging that she was forced out by a small faction on the symphony board, means that Ben-Dor and top symphony honchos will face grilling during depositions starting next month, according to my information.

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Ben-Dor claims that she was tricked, misled, coerced, and forced to resign, undermining her international reputation. She’s also alleging that one symphony official made ugly personal accusations about her conduct during her 10-year reign starting in 1994.

Neither side is commenting. Arbitration is confidential and carried on behind closed doors. But in a reply to Ben-Dor’s original 2006 Superior Court suit, now supplanted by her arbitration action, the symphony called her suit meritless and denied that “an undefined minority of the board and executive committee acted toward Ms. Ben-Dor with enmity and a pattern of behavior targeted at embarrassing and humiliating her.” There was “no conspiracy by anyone authorized to negotiate for the symphony to oust Ms. Ben-Dor,” the symphony said. “In fact, Ms. Ben-Dor decided to terminate her relationship … for reasons of her perceived self-interest.”

Ben-Dor, in addition to regular damages, is also demanding punitive damages because the defendants “acted with malice, oppression, and fraud, and their conduct was despicable, being so vile and base as to be looked down upon and despised by reasonable people,” thereby qualifying her for punitive damages in excess of the court’s normal jurisdiction, according to my information.

An arbitrator is due to hear the case next summer, unless the mess is settled before then, which seems unlikely due to the mutual, intense enmity involved.

THEFT OF NUNS’ $: A year ago, donations to help three nuns evicted from their long-time Eastside convent vanished. Since then, Santa Barbara police have been painstakingly investigating the Goleta woman who took over the fund drive.

Now police have arrested Denise Rachele D’Sant Angelo on suspicion of grand theft of $2,800 in donations they have been able to verify. She posted $50,000 bail and faces a December 19 court date, according to detective Eric Beecher.

Still a mystery, however, is the fate of the nuns’ modest convent next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Santa Barbara’s Eastside. In August 2007, the L.A. Catholic Archdiocese ordered the three nuns of the Sisters of Bethany to leave the convent, saying it had to be sold to help pay multimillion-dollar settlements to victims of priest abuse in California.

But to date, about 15 months later, the vacant property has not been put on the market and parishioners have heard that it might instead be converted to use by Our Lady of Guadalupe. Anger still seethes over the way the nuns were treated—told by the archdiocese to leave on short notice and offered no relocation help. Sympathetic Santa Barbarans raised money to help them.

After D’Sant Angelo took over the fundraising committee, TV talk show host Ernie Salomon and others became concerned about why the nuns weren’t getting the donations and about the whereabouts of the funds. Some donors canceled their checks, one for a reported $10,000. The three nuns, Sister Angela, Sister Margarita, and Sister Consuelo, finding themselves on the verge of being homeless, were given refuge by Sister Abigail at St. Mary’s Episcopal Retreat House next to the Old Mission.

In May, Sister Angela went on medical leave, Sister Margarita was reassigned by the Sisters of Bethany to its L.A. convent, and Sister Consuelo went to teach school in her native Colombia.

PRO 8 COUNCILMAN: Santa Barbara City Councilmember Dale Francisco made a $200 donation to the Yes on 8 campaign supporting adding a ban on same-sex marriage to the California Constitution, he confirmed to me on Monday. Proposition 8 on the November ballot passed, but is being appealed to the state’s Supreme Court. If first-term Francisco, who beat Brian Barnwell for a seat last year, runs for reelection you can expect this donation to be brought up. A number of other Santa Barbarans are on the AP-generated list of Prop. 8 donors—pro and con—some with donations of $10,000. Here’s the donations link: sfgate.com/webdb/prop8. Francisco says all the other councilmembers attended No on 8 gatherings. None were listed as donors, however.

AROUND TOWN: A clerk at Trader Joe’s, commenting on how the recession is driving people to drink: “The first time the stock market crashed, our wine sales were the best in memory.” … A young brunette’s T-shirt: “You Can Trust Me. I’m Not Blond.” … Some of those “firefighters” working to save million-dollar-plus homes in the Tea Fire weren’t from fire departments but were private teams, hired guns from insurance companies. The quick-response teams protected mansions with gel and other fire-retardants. Retired developer Peter Jacobson, for one, believes they saved his Montecito estate, according to the L.A. Times.

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