Ueberroth Says Calls to Aid Rebuilding Are Flooding In

Peter V. Ueberroth, in his first in-depth comments since agreeing to run the Rebuild L.A. task force, said Tuesday that hundreds of companies have tried to contact him about reviving riot-torn neighborhoods, overwhelming the fledgling group.

“My home answering machine quit recording at 120 messages last night,” Ueberroth said.

Ueberroth said his goal is for corporations to make long-term commitments to the devastated inner-city neighborhoods and to create “sustainable jobs on a profitable basis” rather than short-term donations.

In separate developments Tuesday, the South Coast Air Quality Commission announced a proposal to eliminate some of the costly requirements for businesses to rebuild in South Los Angeles, and corporate and community groups offered to coordinate financing for the redevelopment.

Although Ueberroth said he is determined not “to make promises until we feel we can deliver,” it appeared that he is seeking to accomplish something unprecedented: an enormous, private-sector role in developing quality, lasting jobs in impoverished areas that have suffered from a job exodus in recent years.

If successful, such neighborhoods--where jobs often have been at the corner liquor store or check-cashing outlet--might one day be transformed into centers for a range of industry, utilizing trained workers.

“To really rebuild, you need a job base in South-Central Los Angeles that’s better than it was before--before ’65 and before ’92.”

Ueberroth also responded to criticism that as a white Orange County resident, he is not an appropriate choice for the sensitive task of rebuilding the mostly minority inner-city neighborhoods that were devastated in last week’s rioting.

“If there’s a right person out there that wants to take on the task and has the support of all the minority communities and that’s better and more capable, I’d be more than pleased to accommodate that individual.”

Ueberroth declined to estimate the number of jobs sacrificed by the recent mayhem, but he described estimates of 25,000 jobs lost as “very, very low.”

Ueberroth chose a symbolic location for his remarks: the red brick, white-columned estate that is headquarters of the Amateur Athletic Foundation, endowed with surplus funds from the 1984 Olympic Games he administered. Just a few blocks from the Georgian-style home in the West Adams neighborhood, stores were gutted and looted.

Ueberroth said he had not met with leaders of the ethnic communities but maintained that no effort could succeed without their involvement. “The whole thing is tied to getting the community involved,” he said.

In addition to the Rebuild L.A. effort, other groups Tuesday moved forward with plans of their own:

* Two dozen corporate foundations and philanthropic groups met to discuss ways to coordinate financial and other help. The groups agreed to provide food, shelter and free legal assistance to afflicted communities, and to study longer-term aid, said Terri Jones, vice president for programs at the private California Community Foundation.

* The air quality agency said that it would waive pollution-control fees for businesses that want to rebuild in the same location with the same equipment. The agency also set up a toll-free telephone number and formed three centers to help businesses negotiate the process. The centers, in Lynwood, Long Beach and Pasadena, will open May 6.

“We want to help restore the community’s economic base by minimizing paperwork and providing technical assistance,” said Larry Berg, a member of the district’s governing board representing Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

* The real estate brokerage firm CB Commercial established a toll-free number to help displaced businesses find temporary locations.

* The Los Angeles Business Journal and nine major L.A. business development groups launched an ad campaign declaring that the city is “Still Open for Business,” to run in 58 business journals nationwide.

In his press briefing, Ueberroth said he had met with representatives of federal relief agencies Tuesday. His amorphous effort, which includes about 20 full-time volunteers, is focusing on identifying sources of revenue, legal questions involved in rebuilding, the role of nonprofit organizations and short-term housekeeping.

Rebuild L.A. hopes to name a staff, board of directors and pick a headquarters within the next week. Meanwhile, Ueberroth and his associates have been gathering information in meetings with a range of experts in the private sector as well as government.

Many leaders in the black community agree that there must be a new approach to economic development in impoverished South Los Angeles to avoid riots such as those that shook the city last week. Many also agree that any new effort must give residents more of a stake in any new businesses.

But they disagree over how to accomplish this goal.

Some favor huge infusions of public and private cash to finance new ventures and rebuild existing ones. Others argue that money alone is inadequate to address social problems in the community that must be solved before meaningful economic development can take place.

Some favor creation of more enterprise zones in the community to give fledgling firms some tax advantages. But others argue that such zones merely rob the community of tax money while doing little to encourage new business.

And leaders differ on whether manufacturing or services--such as new shopping centers--are the most appropriate types of business to create jobs and wealth for black entrepreneurs. The argument centers on whether it is enough to have another strip mall or video store, black-owned or not, or whether true wealth can only come from making things.

In any case, they all agree that too little has been done since the Watts riots rocked some of the same neighborhoods 27 years ago.

“People are asking for what they think is their share of the American dream,” said Marva Smith Battle-Bey, executive director of the Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corp. “They want business opportunities; they want to have self-reliance. And they don’t want to be dependent on other communities . . . to provide that.”

Battle-Bey’s group developed the Vermont Slauson Shopping Center, which survived the unrest. Her group is also seeking $2.5 million of start-up capital to build a plastics manufacturing plant that would employ 65 people.

The corporation also found financing in 1986 for an “incubator” for five light-manufacturing companies. Under the incubator concept, the firms share a common low-rent building and rely on pooled accounting, marketing and other support services to lower their initial costs and allow them to survive the first difficult years.

Etha Robinson, owner of Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza, wants to see the incubator concept extended in various industries. She is trying to set up meetings with community entrepreneurs to explore the idea.

“We have to figure out a new way to distribute the funds that come into South-Central Los Angeles,” she said. “In our community, we’ve been very individualistic and have had no uniform agenda. And if that’s so, you keep reinventing the wheel.”

But, Battle-Bey says, no black-owned business can survive without wholehearted support from residents. “Until our people have more knowledge of really who they are, until we understand and can accept self-reliance, self-respect, I don’t think any of the programs will work.”

John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, said no ideas will work until such development is made a priority of the city and private businesses. “This effort requires total commitment of both financial and human resources across the board, and is not just temporary busy work and or a short-term commitment.”

He favors efforts to boost ownership by African-Americans, such as joint ventures or financing to help blacks buy franchises of national firms.

Onetime Los Angeles economic development consultant Bernard Anderson, who favors development efforts to spur the growth of small minority businesses, was not optimistic about the prospects for bringing job-creating businesses into the inner city.

“There is no silver bullet to solve this problem,” Anderson said. “We didn’t get here overnight, and we won’t get out overnight.”

He says efforts to attract major manufacturing to the inner city are doomed, pointing to the failure of plants in other cities as examples. “How in the world is a manufacturing plant in South-Central going to compete with a plant on the border of Mexico or in Indonesia?” asked the Philadelphia economist.