The impending ballot battle over gay marriage continues to pick up local financial backing from those on both sides of the issue. Latest to donate to the campaign for the measure banning same-sex marriages is “Adamo Construction Management” of Lakeside, with $10,000. On the other hand, the Center Advocacy Project Issues PAC has contributed $100,000 to Equality for All, a Los Angeles–based campaign committee opposing the proposition. The Center Advocacy group is a political spin-off of Hillcrest’s LGBT Community Center. … Union-Tribune owner David Copley’s $6 million gift to UCLA establishing a movie costume institute in his name has some local charities stewing. The U-T has reported that the cash is coming from the Helen K. and James S. Copley Foundation, which, ironically enough, traces its roots to a shoe fund for indigent children established in the 1930s by U-T publisher Ira Copley. He was the father of Jim Copley, who adopted David in 1965.

The Copley Foundation has long been a major source of funding for local causes, which jealously covet the money. Its 2006 financial disclosure statement, filed in November of last year, shows that during all of 2006, the foundation gave away a grand total of $1,729,730. The single largest two gifts were $500,000 each to Sharp HealthCare Foundation (Sharp hospital was where Copley got a heart transplant) and La Jolla Playhouse. Both were partial payments of multiyear pledges. The playhouse got a total of $1.5 million through 2005; Sharp is due to receive a grand total of $5 million by the end of 2015. The local Roman Catholic diocese was also promised $2 million, with $1.2 million yet to be paid, “contingent on construction phases.”