Head of CRA to Quit; Will Get Large Payout

John Tuite, the embattled administrator of the powerful Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, said Friday that he will resign from his $147,000-a-year job in exchange for a mammoth $765,375 wages and benefits package--believed to be the largest such settlement in the city’s history.

The complex deal, which ends weeks of speculation over Tuite’s future, was pieced together during two weeks of negotiations involving the CRA board and Mayor Tom Bradley’s office.

The agreement calls for Tuite, who has run the agency since 1986, to step down on April 30--nearly two years before his current contract ends. The way was also cleared for new leadership of the agency at a particularly uncertain period of its existence.

Tuite’s announcement came just two months after the ouster of city Planning Director Ken Topping, whom the City Council awarded $220,000 in payments for consulting work after he agreed to step down.

Both moves were seen as part of a political house-cleaning of top development officials who had fallen out of favor with the Bradley Administration. But some City Hall observers questioned why Tuite’s removal was necessary, especially at so high a cost.

“It’s terrible . . . outrageous,” said City Councilman Nate Holden. “What I think of that settlement--you couldn’t print it. I am shocked that the CRA would pay $700,000 to get rid of a guy that is doing a good job, as far as I am concerned. . . . It is a misappropriation of the taxpayers. It is a giveaway.”

A spokesman for Councilwoman Gloria Molina, head of the council’s CRA oversight committee, said Molina was upset at the terms and would investigate whether the council could reject them. But CRA spokesman Marc Littman said the deal does not need council approval.

Increasingly, Tuite was said to be under pressure to resign because of the CRA’s role in promoting high-rise office development downtown over the needs of low-income neighborhoods.

Much of the criticism, according to insiders, came from Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani, who worked behind the scenes to depose Tuite. Although Fabiani could not be reached for comment, sources said the deputy mayor held Tuite responsible for creating a huge skyline while placing little emphasis on providing low-cost apartments and social programs.

Supporters of Tuite said that after 4 1/2 years of carrying out the pro-growth philosophies of the Bradley Administration, he is now being asked to take the fall for ideals that are no longer popular.

“Of course you feel the heat,” a placid Tuite, 58, told reporters Friday after a two-hour, closed-door meeting of the CRA board in which the final details of the settlement were worked out. “I expected the job to be a pressured one. There’s always a question, how long do you want to stay in jobs like that.”

Tuite said he has received unflagging support from Bradley, his resignation was voluntary and that the CRA has made monumental strides in establishing affordable housing.

“The most recent statement from the mayor’s office is that I have the job as long as I want it,” Tuite said.

Of the CRA’s role in recent years, Tuite said: “We have not only developed downtown and our neighborhood areas--particularly San Pedro, North Hollywood, Little Tokyo--but also, because of that economic development, we have been able to run . . . the largest affordable housing program in the western United States.

“As the head of the largest redevelopment agency in the country, you expect criticism from all sides,” Tuite added. “You’re not going to please people.”

The CRA, with its current yearly operating budget of $267 million, is administering 18 redevelopment and revitalization projects throughout Los Angeles. The agency uses property taxes that otherwise would go to the county to foster new growth, often through low-interest loans or subsidies to developers. It has been credited with helping shape the downtown skyline in recent years and is undertaking a 30-year, $922-million overhaul of the commercial core of Hollywood.

Under Tuite, the CRA has constructed and rehabilitated roughly 6,700 new homes and apartments since 1986, Littman said. About two-thirds of them have been designed for low- and moderate-income people. At the same time, the city’s overall housing shortage among poor families has grown, in part because of the rapidly rising property values of recent years.

Bradley released an official statement crediting Tuite with putting a “human face” on redevelopment, in part because the CRA now spends more than one-third of its budget--roughly $100 million a year--on housing.

“No other local agency can match that record,” Bradley said. “Time and again, I have turned to John Tuite and the CRA for help in housing the homeless, persons with AIDS, large families, senior citizens and the many others who can’t afford decent and safe housing.”

Community activists, however, sharply criticized Tuite’s record on building affordable housing. Norton Halper, a longtime critic of the CRA, said: “Under the direction of John Tuite, the CRA has done the least they’ve had to do and has never been compassionate on the issue of low-income housing. I think it’s disgraceful.”

Under the agreement, Tuite will receive a check by Monday for $443,000, including $212,375 in salary through 1992, $162,000 in severance pay and $50,000 in bonus money based on newly completed job evaluations. Those evaluations included two 4% raises that were calculated into Tuite’s $136,000 salary before the deal was completed. The raises brought his final salary to $147,000.

The $443,000 payment will be made out of the CRA’s current salary budget, said CRA attorney Murray Kane. In addition, Tuite will receive at least $16,000 in accrued sick time when he steps down in April, plus anywhere from $292,000 to $312,000 in added pension benefits to be paid over the next 30 years, Kane said.

Chief Deputy Controller Anthony Miera said that in his 25 years with the city he has never seen a settlement approaching the magnitude of Tuite’s, which he called “huge.”

CRA Chairman Jim Wood, who joined Tuite in meeting with reporters after the announcement, said the board’s unanimous support of the settlement was unrelated to the recent “political rumbles.” Wood insisted that the board sought Tuite’s resignation only after learning that Tuite planned to resign at the end of 1992.

Tuite’s plan to leave the agency in two years would have left the CRA without permanent leadership during a particularly difficult time in its dealings with the city and county over the future scale of growth downtown, Wood said.

“If John wanted his contract renewed, we would have . . . happily renewed his contract,” Wood said.

Wood said the size of the settlement was dictated by the terms of Tuite’s contract and commented, “We probably won’t sign a contract like this with the next administrator.”

However, he justified the size of the settlement by saying it pales compared with the scope of the issues now facing the CRA. The major item of concern, he said, is the current $750 million cap on CRA expenditures downtown, which the agency hopes to raise to $5 billion in years ahead despite expected opposition from county officials.

The cap, negotiated with county officials, is intended to limit the amount of property tax money that is diverted from the county’s budget to promote downtown growth.

“Against the cap issue, this is an insignificant amount of money,” Wood said of Tuite’s settlement.

Another senior CRA official, who asked not to be identified, disputed Wood’s characterization of the settlement by saying that Tuite has been “on the outs with Wood and Fabiani for a long time.

“Jim Wood wanted him out on his own terms,” without interference from the mayor’s office, the senior official said.

Tuite was the senior federal housing official for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Los Angeles before leaving that job in 1983 to start a development consulting firm that specialized in housing. He said he plans to resume that work.

City Hall insiders are speculating about whether Wood also will step down as part of the shake-up of the agency, but Wood denied such reports.