40 Directors Selected for Rebuild L.A. Effort : Riots: ‘Tripod’ approach brings together residents, government officials and business figures on board.

Rebuild L.A., the official post-riot reconstruction effort that existed mostly on paper until now, has lined up 40 directors for a governing board that will reach into the community, government and private industry, Chairman Peter V. Ueberroth said Thursday.

Members of the board include Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, actor Edward James Olmos and USC President Steven B. Sample, along with T. S. Chung, a Korean-American attorney, and Carl Dickerson, president of the Black Business Assn. of Los Angeles.

The board will include familiar veterans of politics, such as Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson. But the list also includes lesser-known figures, such as Ki Suh Park, a Korean-American architect. Its makeup is intended to reflect Ueberroth’s notion of a “tripod” of local residents, government officials and corporate executives who will work together to transform the city’s urban core.

“It’s a new, unique approach to governance, and a new, unique approach to including people in the rebuilding efforts,” Ueberroth told The Times in an interview Thursday. “The diversity is going to match the community.”

Ueberroth’s disclosure of a portion of Rebuild L.A.’s leadership comes at a time of widespread speculation about the organization’s direction and makeup.

Since its inception May 2, following three days of deadly riots, Rebuild L.A. has been viewed with suspicion by some who question whether it will fully represent the inner-city residents it is supposed to help. And the nonprofit group, initiated by Bradley, has been a lightning rod for the keen political sensitivities of many groups in Los Angeles since the riots.

Even the formal announcement of the board, expected within the next several days, has been slowed by the delicate task of balancing the expectations of competing interest groups and the need of Ueberroth--a white Orange County resident--to select a panel that will enjoy the confidence of many skeptical constituencies. Ueberroth plans to leave open some of the seats on the board, which will ultimately have 63 members, pending continued input from the community.

“Putting together a board that must be representative as well as a board that must function effectively is an enormously difficult task,” Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said late Thursday. “We started out with over 400 names. Everyone has a legitimate point of view. It’s shaping up as a group that will be representative of the entire community--the mayor is insisting on that.”

Still, on Thursday, news of the board appointments met with mixed reactions.

“I’m going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt,” said Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade, the activist black organization that since the riots has campaigned for minority participation in the reconstruction work. “In my mind, Rebuild L.A.’s Board of Directors is really insignificant. What counts is what they put in practice. However, whoever is on this board really needs to be in touch with the community.”

Others were less inclined to wait and see. “If this list was intended to be something to be shot down, they have accomplished their purpose: None of these people would know South-Central Los Angeles if they saw at it high noon,” said Celes King III, state chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, after hearing the partial list of board membership.

Ueberroth said the directors would make up a “working board,” participating in a variety of task forces. These smaller panels will focus on such inner-city issues as training, education, finance, insurance, entrepreneurship, the economy, land use, social services and transportation.

“It should appeal to those who want to see some progress and don’t want to just go to meetings,” Ueberroth said.

The board officially will convene about four times a year, Ueberroth said. Asked whether he will serve at the pleasure of the board, Ueberroth paused for a moment and responded: “Could they fire me from my unpaid job? Yes.”

He added that he might recruit a few co-chairmen who would share authority with him “to accomplish providing a broader-based leadership and a more ethnically diverse leadership”--although Ueberroth said some of his advisers have warned against it.

Among the board members chosen to represent the “community” leg of Ueberroth’s tripod were John Mack, executive director of the Urban League’s office in Los Angeles; Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Dennis Collins, president of the Irvine Foundation, a charity based in San Francisco.

Others from government include state Treasurer Kathleen Brown; Patricia Saiki, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Patricia M. Eckert, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who is focusing on the problems of urban poverty in Atlanta, had agreed to advise the board. But “whether he formally wants to be on the board, we don’t know yet,” Ueberroth said.

In the weeks since the riots, many have awaited the naming of Rebuild L.A.’s board as a concrete sign that the organization could negotiate the city’s political tripwires and become effective.

One influential downtown businesswoman, who declined to be identified, said Ueberroth had been trying to navigate through “400,000 minefields. I can’t imagine a more horrendous job.”

Another noted the challenge that Ueberroth faces in building coalitions among minority communities that are suspicious of one another as well as of the white power structure that Ueberroth symbolizes to some.

Ueberroth sought suggested board members from various officials and constituencies, but had particular difficulty in coming up with names of Latinos whom the deeply divided Latino Establishment itself could unify behind. Late Thursday, City Councilman Mike Hernandez noted, “There is a clear lack of Latinos among the elected officials” on the board so far.

Ueberroth said: “We want to be careful that we include leaders of the Latino community, and it’s taken a while to do that correctly. We will not (officially) announce the board until that is done.”

Ueberroth also has emphasized his goal of giving the private sector a major role in helping transform the urban core of Los Angeles, particularly by bringing manufacturing jobs back to neighborhoods that have suffered a loss of factory employment over the last 20 years.

Board members tapped from private industry include Lodwrick M. Cook, chairman of Atlantic Richfield Co.; John E. Bryson, chairman of Southern California Edison, which has agreed to donate at least $1 million a year to Rebuild L.A.; Frank G. Wells, president of the Walt Disney Co.; Warner Bros. executive Dan Garcia; developer Nelson Rising, and Hugh A. Jones, an executive vice president with Kaiser Foundation hospitals. Kaiser earlier lent Rebuild L.A. a small downtown building to use as its headquarters.

In an illustration of the sensitivities over who sits on the board, William R. Robertson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), reacted angrily upon learning that the list Ueberroth disclosed Thursday did not include any labor leaders.

“I’m amazed that there are no labor people on the list, particularly from the building trades,” said Robertson, who had a cool relationship with Ueberroth as a member of the executive committee of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. Ueberroth responded that organized labor “absolutely” will be represented on the board.

Some greeted the news that a board was at least partially formed with enthusiasm, given the questions that have surrounded the course of Rebuild L.A.

“There’s a growing feeling in the community that it’s difficult to find out exactly what Rebuild L.A. is and who’s affiliated with it--other than Peter himself,” said Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “The announcement of the board at least will give a fuller sense of the range” of participation.

Times staff writers Louis Sahagun and Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.

REJUVENATING L.A.: The U.S. grants the city $4.5 million to aid poor areas. B1