Vast Expansion of Rebuild L.A. Adds Minorities

By HENRY WEINSTEIN

June 27, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Rebuild L.A. Chairman Peter V. Ueberroth announced a vastly expanded board Friday and said he will soon name several minorities to join him in heading the revitalization effort “so that ethnic diversity is broadly represented throughout the top leadership positions.”

Several sources said Ueberroth has been exasperated at the infighting among various factions in the city. But he said it would be “foolish and incorrect” to interpret the appointment of co-chairmen and women as dimming his enthusiasm for the daunting task of trying to renew the riot-torn city.

The board includes 20 Anglos, 14 African-Americans, 11 Latinos and five Asian-Americans. Of the 50 members, 10 are women.

Among the newly appointed members are some familiar names: Danny Bakewell of the Brotherhood Crusade; powerful entertainment industry agent Michael Ovitz, and Richard Riordan, a prominent downtown lawyer who is a candidate in the 1993 mayoral race.

From government, the new members include state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, City Councilman Mike Hernandez and Deputy Secretary of Education David Kearns, co-chairman of President Bush’s interagency task force on the riots.

The list includes City Hall figures of growing importance, such as Felicia Marcus, president of the Board of Public Works, and Jackie Tatum, who only a few months ago became the first woman to head the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

There are also leaders of the city’s emerging minority populations: Stewart Kwoh, head of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California; Carlos Vaquerano, a leader of Carecen, the Central American refugee center; Esther Valadez, who launched Casa Loma, the first housing project in the nation created by Latinas primarily for single Latina parents, and Ana Barbosa, president of the 1,000-member Latin Business Assn.

Also joining the board are Vivian Shannon, the innovative principal of Centinela Elementary School, and black executives Archie Purvis of ABC Distribution Co. and Robert Taylor of McKinsey & Co., the management consulting firm that is doing free work for Rebuild L.A.

The ethnic and political tensions that have pervaded the board’s selection--a process that has taken eight weeks and led to speculation that Rebuild L.A. was in disarray--were evident in high-level reaction to the latest appointments.

Mayor Tom Bradley, in a prepared statement, called the partial list “a good start” but said the board needed more women. “There are numbers of women--such as Supervisor Gloria Molina, who I already have urged be appointed--who should be invited as well.”

Ueberroth said he would like to add more elected officials, but noted with disgust that some have told him they would not work with other board members.

“I don’t have the stomach and I don’t have the patience” for some of the infighting, he said in an interview after a news conference at Rebuild L.A. headquarters. The former baseball commissioner and Olympics organizer declined to name names, but numerous sources have said Molina and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre have attempted to veto candidates that the other proposed for the board.

Jane Pisano, dean of the School of Public Administration at USC, praised Ueberroth’s choices.

“It’s very much a leadership group,” Pisano said. “He’s really put together a cross-section of people who are highly regarded by various constituencies in Los Angeles. Given all the potential pitfalls in pulling together any finite list, I think he’s done quite a good job.”

But Antonio Rodriguez, a civil rights lawyer and Latino activist, said there are not enough Latinos and virtually no representation of the poor.

“Except for Carlos Vaquerano, these are old faces,” Rodriguez said. “When it comes down to what poor people think they need, it’s going to be filtered through people from higher economic echelons. Where is the participation from the real grass-roots groups? Where are the little people?

“We are continuing to carry out social engineering for those who are supposed to benefit, but those people end up being spectators.”

Ueberroth said he met with 100 community groups and received hundreds of suggestions for the board. “We were trying to find people who had a passion for rebuilding an L.A. that was better, . . . people who wanted to be positive, people who wanted to be part of the process and those who are not afraid to innovate,” he said.

In particular, Ueberroth added, he looked for individuals who will be good at a particular task, have influence in their industry or are a recognized voice in an ethnic community.

Ueberroth said the board could expand by another 10 to 20 people and would include members of organized labor, including a representative of the building trades. He said he wanted to add a woman labor leader from the hotel industry--a reference to Maria Elena Durazo, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 11.

But Ueberroth, whose initial business success was in the travel business, said he was not naming anyone associated with the hotel industry until the union and employers resolve their labor problems. The union has circulated a controversial videotape in the travel industry that criticizes the treatment of low-income workers and emphasizes safety problems in the city.

William R. Robertson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said he is angry about Ueberroth’s failure to name labor representatives to the board. “I think he’s afraid to put people on the board who will speak out against him,” Robertson said.

Jin Lee, who heads the Assn. of Korean-American Victims of the L.A. Riot--which has been picketing City Hall demanding reparations--said riot victims are unrepresented. “These people think they understand the victims’ problems, but they don’t,” said Lee, who lost his Compton store to arson during the riots.

Another critic was Larry Gross of the Coalition for Economic Survival. “If they are really serious about dealing with the concerns of the inner city, they need community people. . . . people who live and work in these communities, people who feel the effects of what happened firsthand and live it,” Gross said. “That’s not to say leadership can’t participate, but at least a great deal of members should be based there.”

Still, others observers said the expanded board represents a broader spectrum of the community than the original 21 members named by Ueberroth two weeks ago.

“The range of skills and expertise needed to make this thing work is well-represented by these new people,” said former Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, who represented South Los Angeles for more than a decade. “The criticism was heard and the accommodation has been made to address that concern.”

Kwoh, one of the new board members, said he is pleased to have been selected, but said he felt the board needed more Asians and women. Recently, Kwoh launched an organization--the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for a New L.A.--in an attempt to forge a broad-based coalition among the city’s diverse Asian communities.

Representatives of at least nine Asian ethnic groups met with Ueberroth for two hours Thursday and expressed concerns about the board’s makeup and other issues, Kwoh said.

Kwoh said he agreed to serve on the board for three reasons. “I’m interested in seeing how riot victims can be assisted, how community relations can be improved and how innovative policies in economic development and infrastructure building can be developed.”

Civil rights lawyer Johnnie Cochran agreed to join the Rebuild L.A. board two weeks ago, he said, because he saw an opportunity to be an advocate for more low-income housing and a “community-based” judicial system. Under such a system, he said, judges and others in the legal community would receive training to prepare them for a caseload that is disproportionately nonwhite and poor.

Cochran, a Bradley ally and former airport commissioner, said he was impressed by the additions to the board.

“There are some community-based people who, if anybody knows them, are going to speak up,” he said. “People like Danny Bakewell, (Warner Bros. executive) Dan Garcia and a couple of the Korean lawyers are going to be lively.”

Standing in front of several proposed logos for the organization, Ueberroth released Rebuild L.A.’s mission statement: “To bring together the positive power and resources of the communities, government and private sector to achieve change by creating new jobs, economic opportunities and pride in the long-neglected areas of our greater Los Angeles Basin.”

In an approach reminiscent of Woody Guthrie’s famous folk song “This Land Is Your Land,” Ueberroth said he was pleased that people in the community were increasingly referring to the organization as “RLA”--which he pronounced “Our L.A.”

Times staff writers Stephen Braun, Andrea Ford and Andrea Maier contributed to this story.

Rebuild L.A. Board of Directors

Chairman Peter V. Ueberroth on Friday boosted to 50 the roster of board members of Rebuild L.A., the group created by Mayor Tom Bradley to guide the city’s revitalization in the wake of deadly rioting. Below are the newest members:

Edward J. Avila: Community Redevelopment Agency

Danny Bakewell: Brotherhood Crusade Black United Fund Inc.

Ana Barbosa: Latin Business Assn.

Mayor Tom Bradley

Kathleen Brown: California state treasurer

John Bryson: Southern California Edison Co.

T.S. Chung: Kim & Andrews law firm

Johnnie Cochran: Law offices of Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.

Dennis Collins: James Irvine Foundation

Lod Cook: Atlantic Richfield Co.

Bruce Corwin: Metropolitan Theatres Corp.

Robert Davidson: Surface Protection Industries