CRA Commissioner Gets Clout From Two Roles

At 8 a.m. each Monday, Christopher L. Stewart arrives at a maze of downtown Los Angeles city offices tucked into the upper floors of an old Spring Street bank building.

There he begins his workweek as a member of the Community Redevelopment Agency commission--a powerful city panel that operates quietly, outside the glare of attention often trained on City Hall, three blocks away.

In efficient, businesslike fashion, Stewart and six other part-time commissioners appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley dispose of millions of dollars in taxpayer investments in revitalization projects--offices, shopping centers, industrial developments, cultural facilities and housing projects from San Pedro’s waterfront to the suburbs of North Hollywood.

But most of their time and attention is spent on the 1,100-acre, multibillion-dollar urban renewal of downtown Los Angeles, one of the most ambitious redevelopment projects in the nation and the redevelopment agency’s largest and most politically dynamic task.

By mid-morning, Stewart is back in the car, driving a few more blocks to his 6th Street office in the historic Pacific Mutual Building, another venerable center of downtown influence. There, as president for the Central City Assn., a nonprofit group of major downtown commercial and development interests, Stewart directs a lobbying tradition dating back more than 60 years--shaping city policy to protect and enhance the huge investments of the association’s members.

When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1980, the slim, meticulously groomed young man with the boyish looks was an unknown. Today, he is at Bradley’s side at press conferences, testifying before City Council committees, participating in downtown ribbon cuttings, arranging forums for developers and City Hall leaders to meet and pushing or opposing city ballot measures.

Stewart, 35, gives as his top priority the attempt to make it easier for workers, shoppers and tourists to travel into and out of downtown. He has brought key congressmen to Los Angeles to lobby them for Metro Rail subway funds and has pushed for converting key downtown streets to one-way.

Under Stewart’s direction, the Central City Assn. has won changes in the city’s smoking ordinance to eliminate requirements for employers to make structural changes to separate smokers and nonsmokers and is leading a campaign to repeal fees charged developers for water mains and fire hydrants.

Rodney Rood, vice president of Atlantic Richfield Co. and past chairman of the Central City Assn., said, “Our government relations, particularly in the period Chris has been president, have greatly improved. . . . That’s how we get things done in this town.”

Attorney Peter Kelly, former chairman of the state Democratic Party and a friend, said Stewart is in a special position of power because he is the bridge between key business leaders and city decision-makers. “One way you define (power) is access to people who, when you put them together, can make things happen,” Kelly said.

Deputy Mayor Tom Houston said Stewart is among the select group that “clearly has access to the mayor on a variety of questions.”

One source of Stewart’s power is that the downtown businesses that he represents as a lobbyist are a major reservoir of city campaign funds. A Los Angeles Times Poll computer analysis of contributions shows that the 13 present officers of the Central City Assn. and their companies gave at least $105,000 in the past three years to city candidates.

But as Stewart has steadily increased his influence and that of the downtown business group, he has been criticized for his dual roles in the public and private sectors. “As the executive director of (the Central City Assn.), he is the agent for the members of the group. He’s their agent, and he’s sitting on the (Community Redevelopment Agency) board making decisions on their projects time after time after time,” said Carlyle Hall, an attorney for the Center for Law in the Public Interest who has been active in challenging city development policies.

State officials and redevelopment agency attorneys say Stewart’s actions are legal; neither Stewart nor his employer has a financial stake in the projects that he is voting on. Bradley aides say Stewart’s appointment in 1983 fit nicely into a policy of finding motivated Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners.

Stewart dismisses criticism of him as efforts to “weaken the opposition.”

‘All Innuendo’

“As my visibility and the visibility of the agency goes up, there are accusations of conflict of interest . . . (but) they are all innuendo and general statements,” he said.

Ties between the Central City Assn. and the Community Redevelopment Agency go back a long way. A precursor to the Central City Assn., the Downtown Businessmen’s Assn., fought for state authorization of redevelopment agencies in 1948 and then persuaded then-Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron to create one that same year.

The business group pushed first for the clearing of the run-down residential neighborhood on Bunker Hill and later, in the 1970s, won approval for massive and controversial redevelopment covering the entire downtown district.

The history of the two groups clearly has been intertwined, but Stewart’s overlapping roles creates too close a connection, critics say.

“I think the perception of conflict is too great,” said City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who last year won voter approval of city campaign contribution limitations designed to reduce the influence of special interests. “Perception is an important consideration in trying to gain confidence of people in the community.”

Marilyn Hudson, who served as a Community Redevelopment Agency commissioner for 12 years, said, “I don’t think you can be really objective when you’re serving two masters.”

Hall, the public interest attorney, said there is a special need to avoid the appearance of conflicts at the redevelopment agency because it is a relatively closed agency. It invests with private interests, rather than regulates them, he said. And the negotiations that lead to those investments are not open to the public. Even commission committee meetings where pending deals are discussed are held in private. “You can’t get at any of it until they’ve done the deal,” he said.

No Conflict Seen

Stewart said there is no conflict because the interests of the Central City Assn. are for the collective improvement of downtown and “no one member can influence me.”

“I’m very careful about (any) conflict of interest,” he said. “My integrity is my most important commodity.”

An example of the kind of influence that Stewart is able to wield--and the controversy he generates--occurred a few months ago when he intervened on behalf of a member of the Central City Assn. board of directors who was having problems with the redevelopment agency on a $200-million project.

Robert Blumin, a developer of the so-called Palace Square project, was seeking $15-million in redevelopment agency assistance for a huge new home furnishings design center encompassing the historic May Co. department store building at 8th and Hill streets.

Negotiations had bogged down in part because agency staffers felt the developers were not putting in enough of their own money and the public funds would not be adequately secured.

Blumin said he went to Stewart for help because “we felt we were going around in circles.”

Stewart arranged and attended a meeting between agency staff and the developer. “Our real estate director said he could not see a hardship in this case,” Stewart recalled. “I said, ‘Wait a minute. This agency isn’t here for hardship cases. This agency is here to see if we can provide assistance to private development to attract their investment dollars to this city.’ ”

Attempt to Influence Denied

Stewart said he was not trying to influence the staff’s recommendation. He merely wanted to speed up consideration of a major project that might have died before the commission ever reviewed it, he said.

“As commissioners, we have to be responsive to citizens when the normal processes are not working,” he said.

“Bureaucrats don’t like it,” Stewart said, because “I know some of these people they are doing deals with and I will pick up the phone and find out if what they (staff) are telling me is accurate. I have no hesitation in doing that.”

Bradley aide Fran Savitch said the mayor would like all of his commissioners to be as involved as Stewart, whom she rated “a 10.”

Acting Community Redevelopment Agency Administrator Donald Cosgrove insisted that Stewart’s intervention did not influence the staff’s analysis of the Palace Square project, which has not yet been made public. Earlier this month, the developers lost a major financial backer and asked the commission to delay consideration while they seek additional financing.

Some redevelopment agency staffers say privately that Stewart’s activities as a commissioner can cause confusion and weaken their ability to negotiate.

“In terms of whether or not the agency gets involved in a particular activity, when you’ve got an individual sitting there saying we should (get involved), is that from the standpoint of his Central City Assn. hat or his CRA hat?” said one agency manager who spoke on condition that he remain unnamed.

Stewart said his presence on the board is no different from other commissioners. He notes that Chairman Jim Wood, another influential member, is political director for the County Federation of Labor, which has an interest in ensuring that projects involving city contracts require union rates to be paid. Other commissioners represent blacks, Asians in Little Tokyo and Latinos.

‘Representative Government’

“I think (that is) representative government,” Stewart said. “ . . . It’s a process of checks and balances. What it does provide for is a more sophisticated, educated dialogue.”

Wood agrees. While Stewart is “very willing to get in the middle” of complaints about how the agency responds, the redevelopment agency chairman said, “I have not seen Chris make a decision that represents a conflict of interest. He has made decisions in the best interests of all of Los Angeles.”

But former Commissioner Hudson said there is a “fine line” between making inquiries on behalf of a developer and “meddling with the staff.”

“I made it a policy not even to have lunch with developers,” she said. “ . . . You have to really keep an arm’s distance.”

Concern over the different “hats” that Stewart wears is seldom heard from leaders at City Hall. They praise Stewart for keeping city elected officials attuned to what commercial interests want and do not want.

“I’ve appreciated Chris because he gets information out,” City Council President Pat Russell said. “I feel I know a lot more” about what business leaders are thinking. Deputy Mayor Houston admires Stewart’s well-researched arguments and credits “great personal presence” in part for Stewart’s effectiveness at City Hall.

The son of a minister, Stewart appears in public settings in a strictly business--stiff and formal--manner, a true reflection of his corporate constituency. “He’s a tough cookie,” said one downtown businessman who has known Stewart for several years. “The humor doesn’t come easy.”

‘He’s Really Fun’

Offstage, there is a different perception. Attorney Kelly, who is part of an informal social group of young Democratic and Republican political activists organized by Stewart after he came to town, said, “He’s really fun to let your hair down with and have a few drinks.”

Supporters see Stewart as professional and persuasive. Critics say he can be arrogant. And he is prone to name dropping: “I had (Reagan political adviser) Holmes Tuttle call the President.” “(Longtime Reagan aide Michael) Deaver told me to stay close to (U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin) Meese.”

With their two small children, Stewart and his wife, Darlene, this month are moving from a condominium in a redevelopment agency project in Monterey Hills to a home in Pacific Palisades. Stewart purchased the home before he joined the commission and abstains from voting on Monterey Hills matters.

As his involvement in downtown has grown, Stewart said he has had to work 12 to 14 hours a day and has little time for the recreation he likes--playing golf at the Riviera Country Club and jogging.

“This is my life,” he said of his work. “. . . (It) represents everything personally and professionally I want. . . . I enjoy selling ideas and concepts.” Stewart will not say how much his income is, but the association job--its salary unspecified on required financial statements--and $50 per meeting from the redevelopment agency are the only known sources.

Downtown business executives were looking for someone who could sell the Central City Assn. when they recruited Stewart.

Founded and dominated for decades by large department stores, the association had not adapted to downtown changes that began in the 1970s, many business leaders felt. Major retailers had shifted their marketing emphasis to suburban shopping malls. Developers who were building new skyscrapers and the major corporations who were filling them were not actively involved.

‘In Need of Revitalization’

“The association was badly in need of revitalization,” said Stephen Gavin, a former Central City Assn. chairman who recruited Stewart. When he signed on at age 30, moving in as boss of a two-man office, he brought impressive corporate and political credentials that included campaign work for Ronald Reagan.

A native of Los Angeles who was reared in San Francisco, Stewart’s baptism into politics and power came while he was a student at the University of Illinois. A family friend hired him as an errand boy for a state commission investigating the Illinois criminal justice system.

At age 20 and still a student, he had worked his way up to staff director and was lobbying senators and assembly members on legislation.

After graduating, he was a Washington lobbyist for Montgomery Ward and Container Corp. of America during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

He later returned to California to direct a Sacramento lobbying effort that successfully killed legislation aimed at reducing consumer refuse through state regulatory control over product packaging.

Richard Gertman, a former staff member with the California Waste Management Board, which sponsored the bill, said it never got far, partly because of the “up-front” opposition by Stewart’s firm, the Container Corp. “(The industry) organized very quickly. . . . (The bill) didn’t stand a chance,” he said.

Helped Reagan Campaign

In 1978, Stewart became director of government relations for San Francisco-based Fireman’s Fund Insurance Cos. Two years later, at the request of Deaver, he joined then-candidate Reagan’s presidential campaign as a top staff fund-raiser. He became embroiled in the power struggle between Deaver’s allies and Reagan campaign manager John Sears and left the campaign after a few months, he said. Later, Sears was forced out. “I was in the right camp at the wrong time,” Stewart said.

Craig Fuller, a Deaver associate who was later a White House aide, introduced Stewart to the Central City Assn.’s Gavin.

Since taking over the business association, Stewart has concentrated on attracting large firms and developers--what Stewart calls the “major corporate players” who have “the most to lose” downtown.

The association’s annual budget has grown from $160,000 to $2.5 million. The two-man staff, plus a bookkeeper, has grown to 11.

As Stewart was moving to attract developers and corporations, Bradley named him to the redevelopment commission.

Stewart characterized his appointment as “just a recognition that . . . literally millions of dollars--hundreds of millions of dollars--(were) going to be generated” for the agency as a result of new investments by downtown interests and that they should have some say in how the funds are used.

Bradley aide Savitch said, “The mayor tries to involve people who have an interest in the direction of any department. . . . (Stewart) has by virtue of his position a real understanding of one of the communities which the agency serves.”

Major Force in Agency

As he did at the Central City Assn., Stewart has emerged as a major force in the agency. He, along with Wood, shapes the debate at public commission meetings--questioning staff recommendations and responding to audience comments. Stewart and Wood are the only redevelopment agency commissioners who survived Bradley’s political housecleaning in 1984, when he replaced 70% of his appointees.

While Stewart’s influence troubles his critics, the business community clearly wants him to stay on the redevelopment agency.

Albert Martin, a leading downtown architect, called Stewart’s dual roles “a fine tie.”

Arco’s Rood said Stewart’s appointment “enhanced (the Central City Assn.’s) effectiveness in that we had much more influence in what decisions were being made over there.”