Korean War Shrine for San Pedro Lagging : Memorial: A veterans’ group says red tape and a competing national effort have pushed plans at least a year behind schedule.

Four months after they achieved a compromise with Los Angeles officials, a group of Korean War veterans say their plans to build a monument in a city park in San Pedro are at least a year behind schedule and that fund raising is lagging as well.

To compound the veterans’ problems, the backers of a congressionally approved national Korean War memorial--to be built on the Mall in Washington--have made a fund-raising push in Los Angeles, raising $25,000 at a cocktail party in Koreatown last month.

The party, billed as a “Commemoration of the Victory in Seoul,” honored the chairman of the Washington memorial committee, retired U.S. Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, who also came to Los Angeles in August to promote the national memorial effort, especially among Korean-Americans.

The Stilwell fete enjoyed broad support in the Los Angeles Korean community. Its invitation listed backers including more than 80 community leaders--from pastors to businessmen to an Olympic gold medalist--and more than 30 Korean organizations.

By contrast, the backers of the San Pedro memorial have not conducted any fund-raisers in Koreatown and have tied themselves to one Korean group, the Korean Veterans Assn. They say they have been so caught up in trying to meet city requirements for approval of the project that there has been little time to raise money.

“It’s difficult,” said Jack Stites, executive director of the committee backing the San Pedro monument. “The national monument, they have their location; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is doing all their engineering. The only thing they have to spend any time on is fund raising. That’s a pretty nice position to be in.”

The $4-million San Pedro memorial is a private effort, proposed by the Chosin Few, a nationwide organization consisting mostly of Marine Corps veterans whose members survived the battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Their monument is intended to honor veterans from all 22 nations that joined in the U.N. effort in Korea.

The Washington memorial, which will honor U.S. veterans, will depict 38 combat-equipped soldiers walking in double-file toward an American flag. It will be set in Ash Woods, a grove of trees across the reflecting pool from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. So far, $4 million of the necessary $7.5 million has been raised for the national memorial, according to Ed Borcherdt, a California fund-raiser for the project.

Stites said his group, in contrast, has raised $1 million in cash and pledges, although he would not give a breakdown.

The San Pedro memorial is to be built at Angels Gate Park, which is on a bluff at the southern tip of Los Angeles, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Los Angeles Harbor. The park, which was once a military base, already houses the Korean Friendship Bell, a gift to Los Angeles from the South Korean government.

Initially, the veterans sought to erect their monument next to the bell--a site that Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley offered them in 1986. But San Pedro residents complained that the centerpiece of the monument--a sculpture that depicts a larger-than-life-size battle scene--would destroy the bell’s peaceful setting.

After a protracted series of hearings, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission--the first of four city and state agencies that must approve the monument--sided with the residents, but gave the veterans preliminary approval to build the monument elsewhere in the park.

The switch in sites has sent the veterans, who had spent more than $70,000 on engineering studies, back to “ground zero,” Stites said.