Inglewood is hard to dislike and easy to root for.

Awards Jury

All America City Awards Program

National Civic League

Members of the jury:

The city of Inglewood was selected last week as one of 25 finalists in the 1989 All-America City Awards Competition.

As you know, the finalists will make their cases in Chicago next month, hoping to be among 10 cities honored for bringing together government, residents and business to solve problems.

For two years, I have covered Inglewood and its schools for the Los Angeles Times. Much of my energy has been devoted to covering misconduct by elected officials, bare-knuckle political brawls, violent crime, a school system hurt by politics, fiscal crisis and charges of corruption.

So I don’t intend to be sentimental or apologetic. And I have reservations about awards such as yours, because they can feed the illusion that progress is made with symbols rather than substance.

But Inglewood is hard to dislike and easy to root for.

The city was an All-America City finalist last year. The application this year is based on three strong programs to fight drugs and drug-related crime:

Business and government joined forces last fall to campaign for an assessment to fund a new 20-officer police task force focusing on gangs and drugs. The proposal won 78% approval at the ballot box in November, one of the highest winning percentages for a ballot initiative in city history. During the same election, voters in four other California cities rejected similar proposals.

The Police Department and schools have also expanded the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program to educate sixth-graders against gang and drug involvement.

And a “reverse sting” media campaign has publicized police undercover operations against drug buyers. It has sent the message that the city is fighting both the problem and the image emanating from the problem.

Inglewood does get an occasional bad rap from the media and outsiders. Ignorance is partly to blame; the mental images of many who have never been in the city are limited to sports events at the Forum and teen-age gunslingers of the type who dominate the crime landscape in Los Angeles County.

There is much more to Inglewood. All you have to do is drive around. You will understand the city’s pride and fundamentally middle-class character. You will see pleasant neighborhoods that reflect the care of residents and city workers.

The energy of upward mobility--hard-working blacks, Latinos and Asians who have come to Inglewood in the past 20 years--has fused with the power of history, embodied by longtime Anglo residents who have been around for generations and don’t plan to leave.

Tensions exist, as in most cities that have experienced rapid change. But there is a delicate structure of racial harmony that permits the city to run smoothly with an integrated City Council, a predominantly white administration and a predominantly black political environment.

As a retired police officer once put it: “It is a tough city.”

As another officer told me: “People here are working their butts off.”

Inglewood has no shortage of heroes: Los Angeles Laker Byron Scott grew up here. He plays at the Forum along with his fellow NBA champions. Entertainers Marla Gibbs and Whitman Mayo--you might know their television identities, Florence from “The Jeffersons” and Grady from “Sanford and Son”--make their homes here among doctors, lawyers, teachers, government workers, retirees. Gibbs and Mayo also own thriving businesses--a jazz club and a travel agency, respectively.

Two other local stars are educators: new school Supt. George McKenna and veteran Inglewood High School Principal Lawrence Freeman.

McKenna inspired a movie about his work as principal of Washington High School in South Los Angeles. He discusses the national challenges of inner-city public education around the country. He appears on “Nightline” with Ted Koppel. The community is waiting for him to work magic on a school system that needs plenty of it.

No one has made a movie about Freeman. His old-school style of discipline has earned critics as well as admirers. But his school has been a pillar of order and respect for education. He is alternately dynamic, bombastic, affectionate. He works seven days a week--look for his car in the school parking lot after Mass on Sundays. A student once told me: “Mr. Freeman is about love.”

Some other heroes have made headlines: Fred Jones, a Los Angeles International Airport skycap, decided he wanted to make a statement against street gang violence. His persistence resulted in a dramatic poster appealing for peace among black teen-agers. The poster, designed by Jones and a Venice political artist, has spread to the streets of other cities.

Or Gladys Waddingham, 88, the grande dame of Inglewood, who has lived in the same house since the 1930s and serves as the city’s historical encyclopedia.

Or some of the police officers. Such as the fierce narcotics investigators wearing T-shirts over bulletproof vests during a stakeout in an unmarked car, who talked about their respect for the city’s residents, about arresting a grandmother for buying drugs, about babies addicted to cocaine.

Most of the heroes are anonymous. Like Octavio, a Guatemalan immigrant laborer whose family lives in a fortified apartment in the toughest part of town. Nearby, floppy-haired drug barons do business, argue, and occasionally shoot each other in front of tumbledown apartment complexes with names like the Metropole and the Royale.

Octavio and three of his children talked about the drug and gang menace. They told me that long work hours and language and cultural barriers prevent many parents, especially Latin American immigrants, from joining Octavio and others who are working to improve security and the learning environment at the local school.

“It’s going to take a while,” Octavio told me. “It’s hard to get people involved when they’re working. They’re scared. They have other things to do. Every person who comes to a meeting, you feel like giving them a medal.”

That kind of spirit is what your award is all about.

City leaders are hoping that they’ll win because it will give them an anchor for an image-building campaign. But I suggest to you that designating Inglewood an All-America City will be only a formality: It already is.

The worst of urban America may exist here, but so does the best of urban America. That’s why there is hope.

Sincerely,