Coalition Looks for Ties That Bind a Diverse City : Civic affairs: New citizen group wants to build bridges between sometimes hostile segments of L.A.

A new organization of community leaders with a name that harks back to power brokers of old has been formed by some prominent citizens who want to revive the tradition of civic activism that shaped the growth and government of Los Angeles.

With its first meeting at the City Club--an executive oasis atop a Bunker Hill skyscraper--the Coalition of 100 displayed the trappings of bygone elites, of groups like the Municipal League that reformed the City Charter in the early 1900s and the Committee of 25 that sought to influence city policy in the 1960s.

Unlike many of the old groups that were made up largely of white business and professional men, however, the Coalition of 100 has tapped leaders from a variety of backgrounds and is intended to reflect the diversity of modern Los Angeles.

“It has all the traditions of a WASP gathering except that it is in color,” said coalition member Virgil Roberts, president of Solar Records and an African-American.

The membership, which actually numbers more than 120, ranges from corporate executives and commercial real estate developers to black street activists and Korean merchants. The group also includes a Latino union official, a woman rabbi and a gay judge.

“The emphasis here is to create a new establishment and not simply to reconstitute the old one,” said Tony Zamora, a downtown lawyer who helped form the group. “This a new leadership group, diverse and open. Up to now, there has been no forum for the leaders of business, nonprofit organizations and community-based groups to get together,” Zamora said.

He said the coalition has no formal agenda beyond a desire to build bridges between different and sometimes hostile segments of the community.

But the fledgling group has already drawn some sniping by people who see it as something of a Trojan horse--a vehicle with a hidden agenda reflecting the interests of downtown business leaders who feel themselves losing ground as the city becomes more heterogeneous.

“It could easily winnow down to the usual suspects,” said a source close to Mayor Tom Bradley, who asked not to be named. “And the city is far too diverse to be run by the usual suspects. The last thing we need is another Committee of 25 around here.”

Modestly referring to itself as a civic benevolent association, the Committee of 25, made up of some of the city’s most influential lawyers and business executives, worked behind the scenes to ensure the election of handpicked candidates for city offices.

Zamora said the idea for the new group grew out of a dinner party last spring in the aftermath of the videotaped police beating of Rodney G. King when the city’s elected leadership seemed paralyzed by the ethnic and political discord aroused by the beating.

“The whole idea of the coalition is to get multiethnicity to work for Los Angeles and not against it,” Zamora said. “We hope that by putting black, brown, gay and lesbian leaders in the same room, they will find things--common goals, shared values--they can agree on.”

The group may represent the genesis of a new, multicultural establishment. But its founder, Richard Riordan, a lawyer and businessman of considerable wealth and influence in local politics, would have fit comfortably in the old order. It was at Riordan’s Brentwood home that the dinner party Zamora referred to took place.

Later, Riordan said he convened a meeting of about 25 business and community leaders, whom he referred to as the core membership,and asked them to help select the remaining members.

Riordan denied that his purpose is to put together some sort of politically correct cabal.

“The prime purpose is to get powerful people of different ethnic groups to get to know each other so when problems occur they feel comfortable about getting in touch with one another,” he said.

Several of the people who attended the coalition’s first meeting at the City Club said the trappings of power are important to the group’s success.

“It is important for it to come off as a serious event,” said Roberts. “In that sense, to have it meet at the City Club with 20 or 25 of the most important white men in town is an indication that this will be a pretty serious group.”

Watts activist Sweet Alice Harris said she was impressed by many of the more affluent coalition members.

“I learned that just because people have money doesn’t mean they are stuck up,” Harris said. “They seemed like they wanted to be there and they acted like they were genuinely glad I was there.”

As for the City Club, she said: “If heaven is like that, I will be more than satisfied.”

Rand Schrader, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge and a gay activist, said he hoped the coalition would help foster improved relations between the gay community and the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, which is represented on the coalition by Msgr. Terrance Fleming, the vice chancellor of the archdiocese and a top adviser of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

“I have an interest in having more direct communication with the cardinal,” Schrader said Friday. “I want to make sure he understands how deeply we feel he has divided the local Catholic Church from a community that doesn’t want to be divided.”

At the next meeting of the coalition, scheduled for mid-Noveember, said Riordan, the group will begin to focus on specific issues, beginning with the local economy.

“If various groups in this city face a common enemy, it’s the current abysmal state of the economy,” he said.

The coalition is, by no means, the first high-level citizens’ group to look at the city and its problems through the eyes of a multicultural assemblage of community leaders. Most recently, the LA 2000 Committee published a lengthy report on how best to govern the city as it changes. Unlike the coalition, the 2000 Committee involved the mayor’s office, and, as its work continues, some of its members have questioned the wisdom of starting up another civic group that will try to solve the problems of the city.

“We’ve just come off a three-year effort to deal with growth management, cultural diversity and the economy, and, for the life of me, I don’t see why we need another group doing essentially the same thing,” said Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the committee.

Author Kevin Starr, who was the committee historical consultant, said it another way.

“I don’t know whether (the committee) was successful or not, but there’s an old Vaudeville saying that you don’t follow one dog act with another dog act.”