Athletic Foundation Grappling With Future : Charities: Conflicts over makeup of board and whether more surplus Olympic funds should go to aid schools have led three directors to quit.

For the last six years, the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles has been doling out millions of dollars in leftover profits from the 1984 Olympics with scant public notice. But behind the foundation’s closed doors, some of the city’s most influential figures have been wrangling over control of the organization and its policies.

The long-brewing conflict surfaced publicly last week when it was revealed that three of its most prominent directors had resigned--Mayor Tom Bradley, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Los Angeles County labor leader William Robertson. They said they quit because the 17-member board, dominated by wealthy executives, refused to open its ranks to young activists with close community ties.

In recent months, as the economic recession has deepened, questions have also surfaced about whether the organization is being too tightfisted with the $95 million it inherited from the highly profitable 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Through various investments and less-than-expected spending, the foundation has more money than when it began in 1985.

What’s more, the foundation’s life span is also being debated.

Initially, the idea was that the foundation would spend its way out of the grants business by the year 2004, giving its largess to needy youth sports organizations throughout Southern California. But that aggressive spending plan apparently has been discarded. A foundation committee is considering whether to make the group permanent.

The day-to-day job of recommending grants to the full board and administering them falls to a small professional staff headed by Anita de Frantz, the only American member of the International Olympic Committee.

The board of directors sets overall policy, and its members include such well-known personalities as Los Angeles Dodgers President Peter O’Malley, retired Lakers star Earvin (Magic) Johnson, television producer David Wolper, former Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook, and former Los Angeles Olympics President and Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth.

Reinhardt, who had served as a director since 1985, said in an interview that with such key issues confronting the foundation, he considered it important to broaden the board’s composition to better reflect the region’s changing diversity and needs. Others, he said, apparently thought differently.

Reinhardt said that at one point, the names of five activists were submitted by a nominating committee for addition to the board.

But the board majority, he said, kept kicking the names back for further consideration. Finally, a reconstituted nomination committee picked not the activists, but two Establishment figures--neurosurgeon Edward Zapanta and archery federation leader James Easton.

“After six meetings, we got tired of it,” Reinhardt said, explaining why he, Bradley and Robertson quit. Reinhardt would not name the activists he had been advocating because he said he was hopeful that some may eventually be appointed if the remaining board members decide to reconsider.

“For a long time,” Robertson said, “we advocated getting some new blood to carry on our legacy . . . but nothing happened.”

If the activists had been named, Reinhardt and Robertson suggested, the board’s balance of power might have shifted enough so they could have initiated an examination of policies that have seen the foundation make more money through investments than it has spent on grants for youth sports programs.

To date, the foundation has given $20.4 million to youth sports organizations from Santa Barbara County to Imperial County. It has also spent $9 million on its own programs, including some for the disabled. Earlier this month, the foundation sponsored distance races in Griffith Park for 1,500 youngsters from 66 Los Angeles-area junior high schools. Additionally, it has built a library and a sports resource center at the foundation’s headquarters on West Adams Boulevard.

But could it extend its reach and influence if it spent more money?

Reinhardt suggests that with public school funding being cut and sports programs on Los Angeles campuses being threatened, “a void has been created” that the foundation could help fill.

Reinhardt, who chaired the foundation’s grants committee, acknowledged that he shared responsibility for pursuing a restrained spending policy. But that position, he said, makes less sense today.

“This community faces a most serious problem with crime and gangs,” Reinhardt said. “Perhaps, we can support some kind of late-night program in the areas where this is the worst. One of the basic issues is to re-examine what we have been doing to see if we have been doing enough.”

But interviews with the most active of the remaining 14 board members indicated there is little desire to spend more.

Wolper, who is chairman of the foundation board, said he was “shocked, totally shocked” at Reinhardt’s remarks about helping fill a void at the schools because he had not raised the issue at a board meeting.

“We cannot finance the school system of this city to the detriment of all the people who need money,” Wolper said. “In all fairness, Southern California, not Los Angeles, is our charter. One year of financing the city schools would break us. We can’t do that, nor should we.”

Wolper said: “The present policy of spending is great. We have the next generation to worry about too. . . . I feel we’re a great organization. We’ve done a great job and we’re full of beans and first-rate.”

Wolper primarily blames Reinhardt for the three resignations. He said he is “not unhappy” that the judge is gone.

Foundation President De Frantz indicated that she is satisfied with the way the organization has been operating.

“Ten years from now, the effect this foundation is going to have on this community is going to be phenomenal,” De Frantz said in an interview. “I’ve had to learn patience.”

Like Wolper, other board members took issue with suggestions that spending be increased to a point where the foundation’s grant and program money would be exhausted. Or that young activists should be appointed who might vote to increase spending.

“What we have found out (is that) we really don’t need to spend at a higher level,” said attorney John Argue, who led the efforts to bring the 1984 Games to Los Angeles. “We can meet the needs that are brought to our attention and be a perpetual organization.”

Staff members say that one reason the foundation has not spent more is because it has been hard to find groups--particularly in the economically deprived minority areas--that can meet the foundation’s exacting requirements for receiving money and spending it usefully.

The foundation usually waits for organizations to apply for its assistance and then rigorously examines the requests.

But even Wolper has on occasion talked of finding a big worthwhile project and making a splash with it. And retired Southern California Edison Chairman Howard Allen, also a board member, said this week that he might be prepared to compromise on a desire for increased spending during hard economic times.

Harry Usher, former general manager of the 1984 Games and a board member, said that given the cutbacks in public school sports, he thinks the foundation “should be more proactive.

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money,” he said. “Maybe, it means getting into the debate and, within the legal limits of being a nonprofit charitable institution, highlight what is taking place and alerting the public to it.”

Several sports leaders in minority communities, who were contacted by The Times, were reluctant to criticize foundation spending policies. They said their organizations had received grants in the past and had found the foundation understanding of their needs.

Where the Money Goes

Since 1985, the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles has made 404 grants totaling $20.4 million to sports organizations from Santa Barbara County to Imperial County. Here are some of the top recipients: GRANTS: AMOUNT Summer Games 1985: $2,000,000 City of Los Angeles Dept. of Recreation & Parks: $1,309,461 Constitutional Rights Foundation (Sports Law Program): $569,687 Boy Scouts Waterfront Youth Sports Program: $550,000 Southern California Tennis Assn.: $545,000 Rose Bowl Aquatics Center: $500,000 Community Youth Gang Services: $479,420 U. S. Olympic Festival: $450,000 California Special Olympics: $411,300 Ladies Professional Golf Assn.: $409,000 California Handicapped Skiers Foundation: $305,505 YMCA-Metropolitan Los Angeles: $318,779 National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis: $283,515 Hollenbeck Youth Center: $250,000 Southern California Badminton: $231,000