Outlook Dim for State Help in Riot Recovery : Unrest: Because of budget straits, no bill is likely to pass soon. Also, no consensus has developed in this election year on what steps must be taken to help the rebuilding.

The embers of the Los Angeles riots still smoldered when Gov. Pete Wilson and state legislators sprang into action with an outpouring of rebuilding bills, programs, investigations and task forces.

But now, six weeks after Wilson put the rebuilding of Los Angeles on the Legislature’s special session agenda, no substantive recovery initiative is advancing expeditiously. Nor is any bill likely to pass soon largely because of the state’s financial pinch, Democratic and Republican leaders concede.

One stillborn legislative remedy proposed a temporary statewide sales tax increase. Another bill sought to make ammunition immediately accessible to National Guard riot troops. Other plans offered various job creation schemes, tax incentives for recovering businesses and law and order crackdowns.

Soon after the riots, the Legislature produced and Wilson signed several urgent bills designed to deal with immediate needs, including one to establish temporary state loan guarantees for riot-damaged small business operators.

Since then, however, the initial enthusiasm for a major rescue launched from Sacramento has waned. The chief reason: State government is struggling to keep itself afloat financially in the midst of a severe recession.

Additionally, no consensus has developed in this election year on what steps must be taken at the state level to help repair the burned-out buildings of Los Angeles or deal with the many suggested social and economic roots of the rebellion.

Instead, Wilson Administration officials and legislative leaders agree that any financial response will be on the cheap. Or, as Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) put it, it will not be much more than superficial fixes.

As Wilson inspected the riot area last month, he cautioned against any expectations of a state financial bailout for Los Angeles. Then, two weeks ago, the Republican governor led a California delegation to the White House and Capitol Hill in search of federal aid in the shape of enterprise zones.

Although the effectiveness of enterprise zones is in dispute, basically they can offer substantial federal tax breaks for businesses to locate, develop and create employment in economically depressed areas. The state can join the effort, but its tax benefits to industry are much more modest.

“The problems in Los Angeles are so great that a state enterprise zone just isn’t enough,” Wilson said after his return from Washington. “We need a more ambitious effort. We need federal incentives for job creation.”

Brown noted that as public attention shifts away from the verdicts in the Rodney G. King case, the riots and their aftermath, “there’s less of a (political) resolve to do anything except cosmetic stuff. It is almost as if (the future of) Daryl Gates . . . is more important than whether or not the Crenshaw shopping district gets rebuilt.”

Although virtually every officeholder in the Capitol agrees with Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) that “there’s no money” available for Los Angeles, some members of both parties also question whether there is the political will to enact any kind of remedies for the city.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), chairman of a bipartisan Senate task force, proposed a temporary increase in the state sales tax to help rebuild Los Angeles--a step taken in 1989 to aid the recovery from the Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area. Faced with an absence of support, Torres quickly abandoned the idea.

“There was not the same kind of outpouring of sentiment for the L.A. riots that there was for the Loma Prieta earthquake,” said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. He said that within 48 hours of Torres’ announcement, constituents were telling legislators, “we’re not going to pay for that.”

In the Assembly, Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), chairman of a special 18-member committee to deal with the aftermath of the rioting, concedes that pulling together the disparate communities of haves and have-nots is a daunting task. But he insists that whatever proposals evolve, they must involve the have-nots.

“We are looking at how we can give the community ownership, a sense of empowerment and a piece of this building action,” Tucker said. “Because, unless the community gets it, then all we do is rebuild buildings for the next uprising.”

Tucker, whose committee has held several public hearings, said he cannot foresee what the Legislature will fashion for the recovery effort but is intrigued by the idea of investing public employee pension funds in joint ventures with private capital to “stimulate business and ownership in those communities.”

With an infusion of state financial aid to Los Angeles unlikely, some conservative Republicans maintain that this is a blessing because government programs merely gum up private innovation.

“We have poured billions of dollars into government programs since the Watts riots and those billions have created jobs . . . mostly for Ph.D.s and urban planners and sociologists,” said Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who sponsored earlier legislation establishing state enterprise zones. “We need something that will create jobs for the chronically unemployed in the inner cities.”

Nolan is carrying a business-backed bill that would create an economic “revitalization” zone for Los Angeles. It would seek to encourage businesses to rebuild by easing restrictions on environmental impact reports, waiving fees for building permits and business licenses, offering tax incentives and eliminating what Nolan calls other bureaucratic impediments to economic activity.

In the meantime, it is unclear how any legislative response would mesh with the highly publicized Rebuild L.A. effort spearheaded by Peter V. Ueberroth, who is trying to recruit and coordinate recovery efforts of the private sector.

A spokesman for Ueberroth said the Rebuild L.A. project is looking forward to working with Tucker’s special committee and that both groups are seeking an agreeable date.

Maddy, however, said he expects Ueberroth to propose a recovery strategy that will involve little participation by the Legislature. “I don’t think he’s going to play the game of politics. Ueberroth is being careful. He doesn’t broadcast what he’s doing,” Maddy said.

* CALL FOR HELP: The push for aid finds different cultures working side by side. B1