Del's new owners are hyping the hotel's connection to Bill Clinton

San Diego — Hundreds of small arts groups may soon have to give up their traditional monetary handouts from San Diego city hall under a plan secretly making the rounds of upper-level city management. The arts subsidies, including everything from neighborhood festivals to street theater to ethnic arts programs, would be cut to free up enough cash to make the payments on at least $215 million of convention center bonds, the fate of which is due to be decided by city voters in June. If those "non-essential" cuts aren't enough, officials are telling sources that funds for neighborhood library operations could also be affected. "Of course, they're going to deny that there will be any subsidy cuts until after the convention center election," says one well-placed source ... The late Larry Lawrence's reputation may be in tatters, but that of his beloved Hotel del Coronado is barely dented from its encounter with President Bill Clinton. In fact, the Del's new owners, a pension-fund manager from L.A., is hyping the hotel's connection to the "Big Creep," as Monica Lewinsky reportedly called him, on its "new and improved" Web site, at www.hoteldel.com, due to launch next month. The Del "has hosted stars and heads of state including 14 U.S. presidents, from Benjamin Harrison in 1891 to Bill Clinton more than a century later," boasts a news release. Actually, Clinton spent most of his time at Lawrence's beachside mansion, Crown Manor, down the street from the hotel. The mansion is still up for sale, offered by Lawrence's widow Shelia, who has recently tangled with columnist Arriana Huffington over the degree of her personal relations with the Prez.

Printing money

A nationally famous but locally low-profile resident of Rancho Santa Fe is making big news in next month's Fortune magazine. Elisabeth Goth, horsewoman extraordinaire, also happens to be heir to the Wall Street Journal fortune, and she's unhappy with the way the Dow Jones publishing company is being run. Goth and cousin William C. Cox III have declared war on company management. "My vision for Dow Jones does not include a stagnant stock price with investments that provide little or no value to the shareholders," she recently told a Fortune reporter over breakfast at "a San Diego restaurant." Described by the magazine as an "elegant 34-year-old," Goth is one of the county's richest residents and is also one of the country's biggest breeders and showers of so-called saddlebred horses, which she exhibited during closing ceremonies of the Nagano Winter Olympics. She was also close friends with the elderly Ellen Browning Scripps Davis and Davis's husband Everett, who died in a fire this month at their Scripps Ranch saddlebred farm, where many of Goth's horses are kept. Goth, now divorced, married her horse-trainer husband at Rancho's Village Presbyterian Church in 1989.

Pot of Golding

Preliminary figures show that Mayor Susan Golding raised a total of $919,751 in her failed U.S. Senate bid and had $135,000 cash on hand at the end of last year. Vista car-alarm magnate Darrell Issa, who's paying for most of his campaign out of his own pocket, reported raising six million dollars, most of it from himself. And Democrat Barbara Boxer reported raising $4,590,000 ... cbs newsgal Lesley Stahl and Clinton flack James Carville are heading here for separate speeches to a big cable TV convention at Loews Coronado Resort March 20 ... A neo-Nazi from Pacific Beach is reportedly being held in a Swedish prison after being convicted of violating Sweden's hate-crime laws. Eric Dobbs was among four Americans arrested at a pro-Nazi rock concert after allegedly giving the Nazi sieg heil salute.

Monetary infusion

Imed multimillionaire Jon Jenkins is trying to sell his Valley Center house, complete with elevator, saltwater aquarium, and replica of a western town, for $2.75 million. Jenkins and pal Richard Cramer, along with Pete Wilson insider and San Diego attorney John Davies, made hundreds of millions of dollars when, back in the late-1970s, they unloaded Imed, a maker of intravenous "infusion pumps," on pharmaceutical giant Warner Lambert, which later sold the outfit for a huge loss. Jenkins and his wife Fran reportedly want to move to Colorado.

Contributor: Matt Potter