Mayor OKs Builder for Major Complex

Despite charges of cronyism, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley signed legislation Monday approving the selection of a business partnership that includes six of his longtime supporters as the builders of a $200-million project in Little Tokyo.

In a message to the City Council, Bradley acknowledged that “questions were raised” about the selection of First Street Plaza Partners by several council members favoring another developer. Bradley said, however, that a veto of last Tuesday’s council action “would have meant many months of delay and substantially increased costs for a project which we all agree needs to move forward as expeditiously as possible.”

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said Bradley’s decision “is sending the wrong signal to the private sector and to prospective bidders in this city that it’s not what you know, but who you know, that counts . . . it’s a message of cronyism.”

First Street Plaza Partners had ranked second in a field of four finalists for the coveted development a couple of blocks from City Hall. The project will include low- and moderate-income housing, a 450- to 500-room hotel, retail outlets and office buildings in which some city agencies will be located.

While a panel of experts gave First Street Plaza’s proposal high marks, it said it favored a competing plan submitted by Showa Village Associates.

Several months after it appeared that Showa would win the hotly fought competition, the First Street Plaza team announced that six Bradley supporters and longtime friends had signed up as minority partners. They are attorney Sam Williams, Bradley’s first appointee to the Police Commission; Bishop H.H. Brookins of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a longtime Bradley confidant; businessman Danny Blakewell, and Latino political leaders David C. Lizzarraga, Louis Moret and Andy M. Camacho. The six men together invested at least $1 million in the project.

In interviews, the Bradley supporters have denied that they were enlisted to enhance First Street Plaza’s chances.

Bidding Process Questioned

Yaroslavsky and Councilman Marvin Braude both questioned the integrity of a bidding process that they charged favored the mayor’s influential friends and also permitted First Street Plaza to propose major changes after a city-imposed deadline. First Street Plaza, for instance, boosted the number of low- and moderate-income housing units after the deadline, city officials said.

In the past, Bradley denied that he would favor the First Street Plaza proposal because his friends were on the development team. In Monday’s message, Bradley indicated that, despite the political fallout he may face, a mayoral veto would mean higher costs to the city.

“While questions were raised about the process used to select the candidates for negotiations, I felt my disapproval . . . would have invalidated all of the work that has been done to date and would have required the city to go back to the beginning, . . .” Bradley said in his approval message. He refused requests by reporters to explain his decision more fully.

Braude and Yaroslavsky had assailed the First Street Plaza proposal because it was expected to cost the city, over a 33-year financing period, about $100 million more in debt servicing than the Showa Village plan. Bradley said that a related council action requiring the winning team to reduce the projected cost of its development to mirror Showa’s proposal “relieved my other concern.”

Yaroslavsky said he will watch closely to make sure that the quality of the project is not sacrificed in order to bring down costs.

“We will have to take a look at what they negotiate,” Yaroslavsky said. “I would not rule out the possibility that a coalition of people on the council will want to block it.”