Shining Up a Tarnished Image : Tired of Being Linked With Gangs, Crime, Inglewood Launches a PR Campaign

If you think of street gangs rather than Laker games when you hear theword “Inglewood,” or drugs and crime rather than affordable housing, the city of 110,000 residents wants to change your mind.

Tired of turning the other cheek as outsiders portray their hometown as a crime-torn ghetto, Inglewood officials have launched a public relations campaign costing more than $150,000 to give their 83-year-old city a more positive image.

“People, when they think of Inglewood, think of a city that existed 10 to 12 years ago,” said Inglewood City Councilman Jose Fernandez, who also sells real estate in town. “A lot of people don’t recognize the changes that have occurred in this community.”

Before blacks and Latinos replaced Anglos in the 1970s, Inglewood was known as an affordable, middle-class suburb close to the beaches, the airport, downtown Los Angeles and various tourist spots. Now the city wants to let Southern California know that, despite some tough times during its rapid population change, the rugged reputation that Inglewood acquired is too harsh.

In an attempt to boost its image, Inglewood officials have plastered the town with glossy banners, commissioned a Rose Parade float and hired a public relations man. The new image strategy ranges from City Hall’s slick ad campaign to grass-roots efforts like Brenda Conyers’ homemade, faded T-shirt proclaiming: “God Lives in Inglewood and so do I.”

Conyers, 39, lives in the same Inglewood house that has sheltered four generations of her family. She is a member of the city’s historical society and a volunteer publicist for the Miss City of Inglewood pageant.

Conyers, who runs an advertising agency out of her home, knows that not everyone is bullish on her hometown, and she is quick to take critics to task.

“I wouldn’t call it defending,” she said. “I’d call it educating. I feel compelled to raise the consciousness of others. Once the whites moved out, no new information came from Inglewood to white people. They haven’t changed their viewpoints since that time.”

Inglewood’s reputation for violence is not without some foundation. Police recorded 55 homicides last year, tying a city record set in 1980. But city officials attribute that rise to accelerating gang violence throughout Los Angeles County. Inglewood, they say, is not the sum total of its crime statistics.

“You just can’t say Inglewood is full of people involved in criminal activity,” Fernandez said. “We have our problems, but we’ve come a long way.”

City boosters complain that an element of racism by residents of more affluent neighboring communities is one factor behind Inglewood’s bad image; outsiders consider the town dangerous and generally avoid going there.

The negative stereotype has been made worse by the news media’s tendency to characterize Inglewood as a crime pocket, officials say. Inglewood, supporters complain, is forever being compared to wealthier, mostly white South Bay suburbs rather than more diverse cities like Los Angeles and Long Beach.

In an attempt to improve Inglewood’s image, a full-time, $80,000-a-year public relations expert, Truman Jacques, has moved into City Hall. “Talking Inglewood Up” advertisements are showing up in local newspapers. Signs everywhere remind anyone using city streets that Inglewood won the National Civic League’s “All America City” award in 1989.

The city already gets a PR boost every time the Lakers or Kings are in town. As the site of the Forum, the self-described “City of Champions” receives invaluable national television exposure from every home game.

To reach into even more living rooms, city officials last week allocated $135,000 for a float in next year’s Tournament of Roses parade, which is seen by an estimated 335 million people in 90 countries.

“There is probably no single way to demonstrate to the people of California that a city is ‘on the way back up’ after years of perceived decline than by entering a quality float,” a city staff report says. “It provides instant identification to most everyone in California that no amount of paid advertising or marketing or public relations efforts could generate.”

In another outreach effort, the city put up $18,000 last month for the Inglewood Porsche Driving Challenge, a gathering of race car enthusiasts to be held at the newly refurbished Hollywood Park racetrack in October.

“Porsche drivers and owners are officers and managers of companies and corporations,” said Jacques, a longtime talk-show host on KCBS. “We want to bring that caliber of person to Inglewood.”

City officials are also floating the idea of sponsoring an annual jazz concert at the track, styled after the New Orleans Jazz Festival, as well as creating a nonprofit corporation made up of local businesses to market the city. Both concepts remain in the planning stages.

Not everyone agrees that Inglewood is spending its promotional money wisely, however.

Longtime resident Conyers, who served on the All-America City Recognition Committee, said the city has been too corporate in its campaign, relying on banners, signs and the float while ignoring residents’ calls for pro-Inglewood T-shirts and postcards spotlighting local attractions.

Councilman Garland Hardeman agrees that the city needs to boost its reputation, but he questioned the wisdom of spending money on a float that he says may be forgotten as soon as the flowers wilt.

Hardeman suggested more proven marketing alternatives, such as billboards featuring an “Inglewood’s Back” message with photographs of Laker guard Magic Johnson, Kings center Wayne Gretsky and even Hardeman’s rival, Mayor Edward Vincent, smiling down at viewers.

“I think (the float’s) a good idea,” Hardeman said. “I’d like to ride on the float. But how cost-effective is it going to be? We don’t know. It’s a stab in the dark.”

Inglewood, of course, is not alone in grappling with a bad reputation.

Compton, another predominantly black and Latino city, has been snubbed so often that officials there have grown used to it. Dominguez Medical Center moved its mailbox from one side of the hospital to the other so it would have a Long Beach instead of a Compton address. Then Paramount erased the name Compton Boulevard from its map. Gardena, Hawthorne, Lawndale and Redondo Beach followed.

Los Angeles may evoke images of placid beaches and glitzy stars to some, but the city’s Convention and Visitors’ Bureau is concerned that traffic, smog and drive-by shootings are taking over as the city’s prime symbols.

Selling a city is no different in principle than any kind of marketing, said Michael Collins, vice president for public affairs at the Los Angeles’ visitors’ bureau.

“This is not brain surgery,” said Collins, who used to head advertising for Revlon cosmetics. “Basically, it is the same as toothpaste and beer. The ‘King of Beer’ did not become the king of beer because it tastes better.”

Why does Inglewood care what outsiders think?

Vincent, who plugs the city in his own way with the INGLEW1 license plate on his Cadillac, said Inglewood’s reputation is hurting real estate values and business investments. Gang violence remains a problem in some parts of town. And, even as he was extolling Inglewood’s image, Vincent was announcing a new program of regular police sweeps to get violent gang members off the street.

Inglewood is still struggling to attract a major hotel and revitalize its dilapidated downtown, mostly made up of swap meets and discount stores. The shuttered Sears building on Manchester Boulevard, vacant since 1988, stands as a monument to the difficulties of attracting new business.

Even so, Vincent said, civic pride is the biggest motivator behind the city’s campaign. And early indications suggest Inglewood is winning converts.

Local residential development has increased so much recently that the council last year adopted a moratorium on new apartment and condominium construction, much to the distress of developers. The city has also lured the Price Club, Home Club and K mart chains to build stores in the community.

“When I started doing business in Inglewood, I had people asking why,” said Mark Sinaguglia, president of the Inglewood/Airport Area Chamber of Commerce who runs the Mayflower Ballroom. “My reaction was, ‘Why not?’ They said they have a lot of crime there. I said there is a lot of crime everywhere.”

He added: “It takes five minutes to create a bad reputation but years to change it. We have a battle ahead of us.”