The Power of Patronage and the CRA

This was a memorable week for political patronage--and for Los Angeles’ most powerful patron.

He’s Jim Wood, organized labor’s second-in-command in Los Angeles. On Tuesday, he was confirmed 11 to 3 by the City Council for another term as chairman of the board of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency. That’s the $500-million-a-year municipal enterprise which converts slums and other older neighborhoods into big commercial developments. Wood, assistant secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, was appointed to the part-time, seven-member board by Mayor Tom Bradley in 1976 and has dominated it ever since.

Behind his confirmation is a tale of patronage and how it shapes city policy.

Wood recalls an older politics. He’s a tall, lean man of 45 and he operates in the style of Lyndon Johnson. In fact, if you liked Johnson, you’d probably like Wood.

When it comes to oratory, his specialty is hyperbole, speaking with an extravagance that would have pleased LBJ. In one-on-one meetings, Wood, while not into Johnson-style lapel grabbing, is a master of eye contact and intensity. Tactically, although operating in a less prestigious arena than LBJ’s Senate, Wood has run Los Angeles’ redevelopment policy for 15 years by strategic bullying and compromising, and by outsmarting and out-working a CRA board that was all but brain dead when he joined it in 1976.

He is, in other words, a perfect patronage guy.

We’re not supposed to have patronage in Los Angeles. Civil Service, installed by forgotten puritan reformers, and other laws have ostensibly wiped it out. But it’s still around.

One form is practiced by the CRA. It allocates projects to the districts of various City Council members. Council members love it. Booming businesses and happy entrepreneurs mean happy and generous campaign contributors.

In return, council members have long acquiesced in CRA plans, especially in its main goal: a high-rise downtown Los Angeles.

Bradley has left most of this grubby trading to Wood, practicing hands-off management of the CRA for most of his Administration.

Left to his own devices, Wood has proceeded to take care of the labor movement that helped install him in the first place. The construction unions dominate organized labor in Los Angeles and when Bradley was elected mayor in 1973, labor made sure the new City Hall team would provide work for its members. Bill Robertson, the federation chief, persuaded Bradley to put Wood on the redevelopment agency board. The building of a new downtown began, and so did a new epoch in patronage.

The patronage was responsible for Wood’s top-heavy vote for confirmation.

Wood, the rest of the CRA board and Bradley had been under attack, accused of permitting the agency to become a servant of big developers.

The issue was low-cost housing. As the homeless increased on the street, and the supply of inexpensive housing diminished, the Bradley Administration came under increasing attack. Critics wanted to use much more of CRA income for construction of inexpensive housing, rehabilitation of old homes and construction of more single-room-occupancy hotels on Skid Row. Wood defended the agency, saying it had built plenty of housing. But Bradley gave in to the critics. Hands-off management became hands-on supervision. He announced a series of policy changes, including a shifting of CRA revenue to building inexpensive housing.

Wood went along with the new program, but criticism from community leaders persisted. On Tuesday, though, none of that seemed to matter. What mattered was patronage.

Slow-growth advocate Ruth Galanter, whose district contains the big Crenshaw shopping center, praised him. Bob Farrell, Gil Lindsay, John Ferraro, Joan Milke Flores--all of them CRA beneficiaries--joined in the toasts. As support mounted, others without such overt vested interests, joined in. In politics, when the train leaves the station, the smart ones are on board.

Now, the big question is how the vote will shape policy.

I talked to Wood the day after the vote, and he sounded like Mr. Downtown. He even spoke about reviving the People Mover, a long-abandoned white elephant designed to shuttle people to the high-rises.

He said all the right things about low-income housing, but without that special passion he reserves for downtown buildings over 50 stories.

I mentioned this to some of Bradley’s top aides. I said Wood sounds like LBJ after 1964: He thinks he has a mandate. Is he going to make Bradley de-emphasize the campaign for more low-cost housing?

No, I was told. Wood is going along. The aides were quite firm about this. But I know Wood’s determination, and his ability to distribute projects to council districts. I know the power of patronage.