Upset at Handling of Olympic Surplus : Miffed L.A. Councilmen Delay Funds Due LAOOC

Two Los Angeles city councilmen, piqued that the foundation distributing surplus 1984 Olympic funds is not making the kind of grants they want--particularly for projects in their districts--are holding up $3.3 million in city reimbursements to the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

It is not the first time politicians have felt slighted by the independent businessmen and professionals who run the Olympic committee, but it is one of the rare occasions that they have been able to do something about it.

The $3.3 million is money paid to the city two years ago by the Olympic committee for police and other services that was never needed, and that has been held for eventual reimbursement.

But Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and David Cunningham control the council’s Finance Committee, which must approve the repayment. Despite entreaties by Mayor Tom Bradley and Olympic board members, Yaroslavsky, the chairman, will not say when his committee will take the matter up.

“As soon as practicable,” Yaroslavsky said Tuesday, but he indicated that it might not be before 1988. Cunningham, for his part, observed: “The chairman runs the committee. I’m a humble servant of the committee chairman. These chairmen, they get powerful at times.”

Olympic Chairman Paul Ziffren said the lack of reimbursement by the city has prevented the LAOOC from making another distribution of about $45 million to the foundation and then formally dissolving itself.

Neither councilman, in separate interviews, made any secret of their displeasure with the Amateur Athletic Foundation, the successor group to the Olympic committee. The foundation, which has much the same board of directors as the old LAOOC, has the job of distributing Southern California’s 40% share of the $235-million Olympic surplus.

“Can they pronounce my name at the foundation?” Yaroslavsky asked. “Not one of their board members has had a conversation with me for months.”

The Westside councilman is upset that the foundation staff had recently refused to recommend money for more swimming instructors at two recreation centers in his district under the foundation’s upcoming Summer Swim ’86 program on grounds that the young people using the centers were not ethnically diverse enough.

But foundation board members at a closed meeting Monday and City Hall officials said they believe the main reason Yaroslavsky is angry is because a $1.7-million grant for expansion of an indoor swimming complex in Westwood that he wanted was not approved last fall.

‘Pool Stuff Is Nonsense’

Yaroslavsky said “the pool stuff is nonsense” and that he had dropped all idea of the foundation financing the pool expansion.

Foundation President Stanton Wheeler said Yaroslavsky had dropped his push for the Westwood pool funds after the foundation staff asked “a variety of difficult questions about it.”

Wheeler said he knew nothing about any staff member making ethnic evaluations on the Summer Swim ’86 program and noted that in its initial stages the program is confined to Hollywood and South and East Los Angeles areas outside Yaroslavsky’s district.

Cunningham, meanwhile, said he is unhappy because the foundation would not agree to give $1 million to each of the city’s 15 councilmanic districts to spend as panels appointed by the council members saw fit.

“It was a bit of arrogance on the part of these folk,” he said of the foundation board. “They never so much as invited us to make a presentation.”

Wheeler explained: “The board decided as a matter of policy not to make block grants to any organization. The issue is broader than the City Council.”

Foundation board members said, however, they were told that Cunningham’s feelings were exacerbated when a request that the foundation’s headquarters, in a renovated mansion surrounded by fine grounds in his South Los Angeles district, be made available for his son’s wedding was turned down.

‘I Never Asked’

Asked about this, Cunningham responded: “I never asked. My son may have asked. . . . Now, if he’s getting married, he’s getting married in Toronto.”

Cunningham’s son, David Cunningham III, later telephoned to say that he had asked about the availability of the mansion but had not pursued the request.

“His son made a perfectly reasonable, informal inquiry,” Wheeler said. “There was absolutely no pressure or impropriety connected with it. We get many such requests, but unfortunately we cannot make the facility available for purely private functions.”

At Monday’s foundation meeting, board member Stephen Reinhardt was also reported to have observed that quite a few City Council members are disaffected with Olympic officials because they did not receive free tickets to the 1984 Games.

Cunningham said Tuesday that it was “a number of things, not just (the lack of) free tickets” that displeased council members. He said many council members did not feel that they had received “a respect and an accolade and a pat on the back” from the private committee after its creation.

Asked if he were displeased he had not gotten free tickets, Yaroslavsky said: “That’s nonsense. I was very satisfied with the tickets I was able to purchase for the Games, for a large amount of money.”

Both councilmen said in the interviews that their unhappiness with the foundation extends to many areas. They charged that it is giving too many grants to Southern California communities outside Los Angeles and not spending enough on capital projects.

Cunningham said he was appalled when he read Tuesday that the foundation had given grants to programs in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties when it was Los Angeles that had hosted the Games.

Yaroslavsky said he is not satisfied with the way the foundation is being managed.

But another councilman, John Ferraro, said, “It’s not his (Yaroslavsky’s) business” how the foundation is being managed, in terms of using that as an excuse to hold up the reimbursements. Ferraro questioned why the matter had been referred to the Finance Committee anyway, instead of to his own ad hoc Olympic committee.

Yaroslavsky said he realizes that the city is obligated to pay the money and eventually will have to pay. But he steadfastly refused to say when, and he did not deny the statements of foundation board members who said they had been informed at Monday’s meeting that Yaroslavsky had told colleagues that he put the reimbursement “on the bottom of the committee pile and it will be a very long time before anything is done.”

Ziffren, however, said: “The city administrative officer has meticulously checked the Olympic account and has determined that the city owes the Olympic committee more than $3.3 million. This conclusion is supported by the examination made by the mayor and by the city attorney. . . . Under the circumstances, I am confident that the City Council will approve the payment which obviously is due.

“If the payment is not approved without further delay, then the victims will be the youth of the community who are the beneficiaries of the Amateur Athletic Foundation.”