Reaction Divided Over Key Role for Ueberroth

Mayor Tom Bradley’s choice of Peter V. Ueberroth to lead Los Angeles’ rebuilding efforts drew divided reaction Sunday, with some questioning whether the man heralded for his organizing skills in the 1984 Olympics can effectively relate to the plight of the city’s riot-torn neighborhoods.

Black, Asian and Latino politicians and business leaders acknowledged that Ueberroth brings considerable financial acumen to his new post as czar of the city’s “Rebuild L.A.” extragovernmental task force. But some members of the city’s minority community, especially small business owners and residents of damaged areas, expressed skepticism about whether Ueberroth has sufficient understanding of the devastated neighborhoods where the repairs will need to be made.

Moreover, economists and academics said that no matter what amount of support Ueberroth eventually receives, he will face daunting economic, social and political obstacles in the rebuilding effort.

Among those expressing puzzlement with Ueberroth’s appointment was Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina.

“I don’t understand what the relationship is between Peter Ueberroth and rebuilding a city,” she said. “It involves community relations and ethnic relations and everything.

“I don’t know him to be the great mediator of race relations. And there is great racial tension going on here,” added Molina, considered by some to be a possible mayoral candidate next year. “I don’t know that he knows how to deal with people who are down and out and put them back on their feet. . . . I am willing to listen, but I don’t know.”

Some community leaders raised concerns that Ueberroth, who lives in Laguna Beach and operates a Newport Beach investment firm, might favor businesses outside the stricken area to the exclusion of local merchants.

But in an interview, Sunday, Ueberroth sought to assuage these concerns.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” he said. “I stated clearly that I would go forward in this unpaid job only if I had the support of the African-American, Latino, Asian and Anglo communities that were affected.

“A plan to revitalize and rebuild will only work with their support.”

As for criticism that he doesn’t have sufficient sensitivity to Los Angeles because he lives outside the city, Ueberroth said: “If somebody thinks there is a problem, so be it.”

At a City Hall press conference Sunday, Bradley also pledged that local business people, not outsiders, would be the prime beneficiaries of redevelopment.

“It is going to be a partnership,” Bradley said. “The community will be very much involved in the planning and implementation, and hopefully in the ownership.”

But corporate Los Angeles will need to play an important role too, he said.

“It is very easy to get people’s attention if a whole community is set on fire. That’s happened,” Bradley said. “We have the attention of the corporate leaders. They have already made offers to help. And I am confident that they will.”

Other City Hall officials and some business executives joined Bradley in defending the selection of Ueberroth, saying he had the stature to bring private financial investment to the city.

“His capacity to leverage substantial resources and to attract people who otherwise might not be interested seems to speak for itself,” said City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who advised Bradley on the selection.

Ridley-Thomas said the governing board of “Rebuild L.A.” will be a diverse group that will assure that minorities from within the riot zone will be the prime beneficiaries of the redevelopment.

“No one is billing Peter Ueberroth alone as the Great White Hope,” Ridley-Thomas said. “He is not acting independently. He will have a board of directors to represent a broad cross-section of the community. And I think that those who have criticism of his appointment would be better served by moving . . . to help us revitalize this city.”

Some business leaders, who will play a pivotal role by financing development and creating jobs in the stricken areas, were already starting to pledge support to the Ueberroth effort.

“Ueberroth seems an excellent choice for this particular task,” said Jeff Beyer, vice president at Farmers Insurance Group. “He has a track record and he has studied the economic conditions in the state. We are certainly committed to doing what we can to work with the task force and help with the rebuilding effort.”

But some executives said it was too early to say what sort of financial commitment would be asked of them and whether they would be willing to provide it.

Others in business questioned whether Ueberroth knows enough about the business conditions in riot-torn areas.

Reesa Johnson, a black businesswoman who owns the Johnson and Guess beauty shop on Pico Boulevard in a Fairfax District area hit by vandals and looters during last week’s rioting, was representative of those who doubt whether Ueberroth is the right person for the job.

Johnson, who wondered out loud about Ueberroth’s sensitivity to residents’ needs, suggested that the Rev. Jesse Jackson might be better suited to head the recovery program.

“It’s not just about raising money to rebuild,” said Johnson. “I think, as a people, we need our own leaders to rebuild. He (Ueberroth) does not understand. He cannot relate to our needs.”

And Bill Richardson, an equipment leasing executive who lives in Baldwin Hills, only blocks from the blackened streets of Crenshaw Boulevard, said, “I’m not sure in this area Ueberroth will have the same success he had during the Olympics. We need somebody who really understands the area. Putting money into rebuilding without addressing the fundamental animosity (toward business) is like putting a Band-Aid on a wound.”

Distrust of government efforts extend to the Korean-American community as well.

“I have a certain degree of confidence in Mr. Ueberroth because he ran the Olympics well,” said Eui-Young Yu, professor of sociology at Cal State Los Angeles. “But he will have to work with the community. There is a certain degree of disbelief in the Korean-American community” about the city Establishment aiding them. “We saw that nothing came when there was a need, an immediate danger” during the riots.

On Saturday, Bradley announced his choice of Ueberroth to head the city’s reconstruction effort, saying it was important that the city quickly make efforts to set up a group to go about the task of helping devastated communities recover from the days of fire and looting.

Ueberroth said at the press conference Saturday that the rebuilding program would become a blueprint for revitalizing cities across the nation. He said a combination of public and private funds would be needed to resurrect Los Angeles. Experts have estimated that upward of $1 billion may be needed to rebuild the city.

Ueberroth attracted worldwide attention for his work as head of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. In that role, Ueberroth silenced skeptics who questioned his strategy of enlisting major corporations to provide unprecedented backing for the Olympic Games.

But the Olympics turned out to be a resounding success.

However, experts who have studied urban development say Ueberroth faces a far more difficult task than an earlier generation of leaders confronted with the job of rebuilding after urban uprisings.

Anthony Downs, a senior fellow who specializes in urban development issues at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said not even the Marshall Plan--the highly successful program of U.S. economic and technical assistance to 16 European countries, aimed at restoring their productive capacity after World War II--provides a blueprint to contend with the sort of social and economic devastation that Los Angeles may face for years to come.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult to rebuild,” said Downs. The federal government has too little money to come up with a Marshall Plan, and private industry will be reluctant to invest again in the riot-torn areas of South Los Angeles, he said.

“The (social) value questions that underlie the conflict will take a long time to address,” Downs added. “This is the toughest job in society other than reforming the school system. People weren’t very successful in rebuilding after other riots.”

Amid the skepticism, however, a few experts offered suggestions on how Ueberroth might proceed to overcome political divisiveness and economic constraints.

Thaddeus Spratlen, a business school professor at the University of Washington who has studied the lack of retailers in poor urban areas, for instance, said officials first need to address the apparent friction between community residents and merchants before starting the rebuilding process.

“At whatever level the redevelopment occurs there will have to be a business and community forum so that people can address the issue” of how merchants can best relate to community residents much like cities have “adopted police/community relation boards,” Spratlen said.

Spratlen said that while it may seem financially prudent to undertake reconstruction incrementally, that approach might create conflicts between various ethnic neighborhoods as well as areas that weren’t well-served by retailers even before the riots.

“It’s likely that the least-devastated areas will be the most attractive for redevelopment,” said Spratlen, “but how are people going to react in areas where there is not a convenience store within a three-mile radius and a supermarket within a 10-mile radius.”

But in contrast to the aftermath of riots in the 1960s, minorities may be more willing and able to participate in the rebuilding of their communities this time.

“We have a much wealthier and sophisticated class of black investors out there,” said Virgil Roberts, president of the black-owned record label Solar Records. “In the 1960s, most black people couldn’t even vote in America. But now there is a whole professional class of MBA graduates and others who have the ability to help.”

Times staff writers Frank Clifford, Kathy M. Kristof, Patrick Lee, Dean Murphy, Stuart Silverstein, Dean Takahashi and George White contributed to this story.