RIOT AFTERMATH: GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS : Black Builders Want Fair Share of Construction

The telephone was quiet at A. C. Builders in South Los Angeles on Monday, even as massive repairs in the riot-torn community slowly got underway. The small, black-owned contracting firm was called upon to repair broken doors at a ransacked Newberry’s department store, but nothing more.

“I told them, ‘Give us your broken walls,’ but I am not hopeful,” said A. C. Builders’ owner Al Williams, expressing a concern voiced by other black-owned construction firms Monday that they will be frozen out of much of the rebuilding effort.

The huge Southland construction industry is well-equipped to handle the massive task of rebuilding the areas destroyed in last week’s rampage in South Los Angeles and surrounding communities. Construction bosses say that thanks to the region’s economic recession, there is no shortage of workers or materials for the enormous reconstruction effort.

But black-owned contractors are concerned that they will miss out on much of the work of rebuilding shops and offices in the ravaged neighborhoods where many of them work and live. These contractors said they are concerned that larger, better financed, non-minority firms will get the bulk of the business, depriving them of a chance to recover from the slump.

While black-owned firms are likely to share in any publicly financed construction, privately funded rebuilding is another matter. “With these shopping centers, often we don’t know a bid went out until we see the earth moved and a shovel in the ground,” said Maxine Ransom VonPhul, a Los Angeles contractor and president of the Black Business Assn. “By then it’s too late.”

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Linda Griego said the city is sensitive to the concerns of black-owned businesses. Griego said the question of how minorities will share in the reconstruction effort came up at a meeting of 200 Baptist ministers Monday at the Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Los Angeles.

“All I can say to these people is that there will be a real effort to get the community involved,” she said. “We feel the community has to be involved.”

For the construction industry--one of the Southland’s largest employers--the rebuilding of the damaged communities promises to lift it somewhat from an economic malaise. According to figures compiled by the state Employment Development Department, 123,100 people were employed in construction jobs in Los Angeles County in March, down from 134,000 in March, 1991.

While no one is yet certain how many buildings will be rebuilt and how many others will be razed, the reconstruction effort “will improve the numbers in that industry, there’s no question about that,” said Jay Horowitz, a labor market analyst.

Owners of black-owned businesses acknowledge significant obstacles in getting their share of the redevelopment.

“Quite often minority businesses suffer from a lack of working capital and the inability to go to banks and get working capital,” said Richard Robnett, an electrical contractor in the Crenshaw District.

In addition, Robnett said, smaller black-owned businesses lack experience with big rebuilding jobs, and as a consequence, “no one wants to give you a shot to get the experience.”

Robnett said that his own experience is an example of the frustrations. Though he has been in business for 27 years, he obtained his first bank loan only two years ago after he was fortunate enough to sign up as a subcontractor to Bechtel Corp. on the Metro Rail. Before that, he said, bankers would not talk to him. “Suddenly, they treated me like a human being,” he said.

Gene Hale, president of the African-American Business Assn. and owner of a business that leases construction equipment, said his members are exploring ways to bring black-owned contractors together to pool their resources to bid for big rebuilding jobs. “Alone they may not have the cash for materials and supplies, but together, they may have the opportunity to get better credit terms from the banks,” he said.

Hale and other minority contractors interviewed Monday said such a pooling of interests has never been tried before in Los Angeles among black business owners.

But, Hale said, “history shows that something needs to be done. (With) projects in the past (such as) the rebuilding of Watts, the Century Freeway, the community did not reap the full benefits as they should have.”