An Alpine group hoping to drum up support for a community arts center wants residents to know they are not advocating an arts tax, despite a recent mail campaign.

A nonprofit established in 1978, the Alpine Arts Council "is fully managed and operated through volunteer grassroots membership, just simply to promote the love of arts," said president Christine Culver.

The group has mailed a survey and color brochure to every Alpine household as the first step toward getting private donations to build a large arts center in the city.

"We are doing a feasibility study on the future progress of the Alpine Arts Council and Alpine Community Theater," reads the brochure. "Your timely response is appreciated and necessary for some important decisions being made now."

A 19-question survey in the brochure may have confused some residents, Arts Council officials said. The last question in the brochure asks if the proposed arts center should be "totally funded by bond with tax assessments to every family in Alpine."

But the group is not trying to bring an arts tax upon the city, said Culver, and Paul Thompson, the Arts Council member who created the brochure, and Laura Snyder, president of the Alpine Community Theater.

"We do want this whole thing to be totally funded by private donations and philanthropy," Thompson said, noting that in retrospect including the question about a bond assessment was probably "a mistake. We don't want people to think we are going to raise their taxes. We want to underscore that."

The group is looking for land and money to build a multi-use building that could include a large theater, classroom space, a senior center, a library, art gallery "and maybe a small children's museum," Culver said. "This is growth driven."

Hoping to get both private and state arts grants, the group will need to show community support for the project, which is why they sent out the survey, they said. They wanted to explore all options for funding the building and added the question about a tax assessment almost as an afterthought, in case there was wide-spread support for the idea. But the group has since decided it would not accept local bond money because the city would then be in charge of the arts center.

"My dream and goal is just to be able to fund this through private donation and sponsorship and corporate donations rather than public money, and I'd like to build a foundation. It should be self-sustaining," Snyder said.

"We want to get this building built," Culver said.

"I have spear-headed this from the belief that this will happen, because I really believe it will," Thompson said.

For years, the Arts Council has been putting on a show of local artists during the city's annual celebration, but has had to limit the art on display for years because of lack of space.

"It's frustrating to have to fit the show into the building that we have," Culver said. The show is held in an LDS wardhouse.

There is "a need and desire for classes in art, dance and theater and there is no venue to do that," Snyder said. Classes could range as wide as painting, flower-arranging and photography.

The group would also like to expand a local storytelling program, and needs permanent storage space for the community theater, they said.

"We are vagabonds, going from school to school and borrowing space to store things," Snyder said with a laugh.

There has been a groundswell of support for the arts in Alpine in recent years, all three said. About 500 people per night attended this summer's production of "Beauty and the Beast" during its eight-night run, and 200 people participated in the show. They also noted that private donations paid for the brochure and survey.

Culver said Alpine is an enclave of professional artists who need a venue to show their work and share their expertise with the rising generation of artists, something that cannot happen without a space dedicated to the arts.

"Hopefully it will be the heart of Alpine, and be a gathering place for various activities," Snyder said.

Beginning next year, the group will launch a series of events they term "creative fundraising" in an effort to collect funds for the building. They are hoping for donations large and small, and noted the Eccles Arts Foundation has shown an interest in matching funds, though there is no agreement in place.

The Alpine Arts Council would like to remind Alpine residents to turn in their surveys as soon as possible.