Holden Claims Coveted Prize in District Remap : Government: He captures the aging Santa Barbara Plaza, which is targeted for redevelopment funds, but loses the First A.M.E. Church, one of the most prestigious black institutions in the city.

In quiet maneuvering shortly before the Los Angeles City Council voted on its redistricting plan in May, Councilmen Nate Holden and Mark Ridley-Thomas each succeeded in claiming a coveted prize from the other’s turf, The Times has learned.

Holden’s coup was to capture Santa Barbara Plaza, an aging shopping center in the Crenshaw District that has been targeted for redevelopment by the city. As the councilman representing it, Holden will play a leading role in determining how it is developed and how millions of dollars in redevelopment funds are spent.

Ridley-Thomas’ prize is a largely symbolic one: the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Mid-City area. It is one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious black churches in the city. Particularly since the riot, when it became the center of a citywide relief effort, the church has been adopted by politicians and black community leaders as a favored place for press conferences and other media events.

David R. Ely, a consultant for the city, said Holden’s request for Santa Barbara Plaza and Ridley-Thomas’ bid for First A.M.E. came during a flurry of fine-tuning adjustments in the redistricting maps before the vote on May 21. “I assumed they made a swap,” he said.

Holden, however, said he did not cut any such deal with his council colleague. Ridley-Thomas declined to comment on the changes.

For months preceding the redistricting vote, Ridley-Thomas, a first-term councilman elected last year from a district that includes South-Central Los Angeles, had made clear his desire to have the largely middle-class, African-American communities of Baldwin Hills, Leimert Park and Crenshaw added to his district.

Ridley-Thomas did pick up most of the community, which had been part of Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s Sixth District. But in the late switch, Holden managed to snag Santa Barbara Plaza and half of the $120-million Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, a largely completed redevelopment project.

Galanter said both she and Ridley-Thomas were unaware that the final plan had given Santa Barbara Plaza to Holden.

“It was a surprise to all of us,” Galanter said, adding that she suspected the change was part of a “back-room deal.” Galanter, who had sought to retain the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw area in her district, voted against the final plan.

One city official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, said it was clear that Ridley-Thomas did not know until days after the May 21 vote that Santa Barbara Plaza had been removed from his district. When he learned that it had, the official said, “You could tell by the expression on his face, he was not pleased.”

Holden said Ridley-Thomas should have realized that no deal is done until the votes are counted.

“Nothing is final,” Holden said. “Until the lady sings, nothing has been done. . . . It means that you have to pay close attention.”

But while Holden was clearly pleased at having gained Santa Barbara Plaza, he was piqued over the loss of First A.M.E., a community institution.

“Mark made some adjustments to the district without discussing it with me,” he said. “I didn’t know that the church was not in my district until the map was adopted.” And even though he voted for the plan, he said he did not notice the change until it was too late. The church had been in Ridley-Thomas’ old district, but early versions of the new redistricting plan placed it in Holden’s.

The Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of First A.M.E., said he became aware of the confusion last month when he received a call from Holden.

“Nate called and said we would be in his district,” he said, “and then about a week later Mark called and said that they had rejuggled or redrawn the lines and that we would remain in his district. . . . We would be highly pleased to be in a district supervised by either one.”

Holden said he expressed interest in Crenshaw only after it became clear that Galanter would not succeed in keeping it. The heart of Crenshaw, he contended, was more within the “sphere of influence” of his old district than of Ridley-Thomas’.

“Some people, when they learned that they were going to be in a South-Central district, became very upset,” he said. “Merchants came down and testified that they wanted us to represent the area.”

The representation issue is a sensitive one among some Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw residents, who make it no secret that they prefer whenever possible to be linked to the Westside rather than South-Central.

While Santa Barbara Plaza is a plum for Holden, it is also likely to present a challenge for him, as it did for Galanter. The 23-acre shopping center is home to about 250 businesses, most of them very small, and it is the largest concentration of black-owned enterprises in the city.

Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw residents have long complained of being neglected, despite the area’s affluence, by major retailing chains. Against this background, a spirited debate has taken place during the past few years over the relative merits of attracting top-flight retailers versus the sometimes conflicting goal of encouraging the development of black-owned businesses.

In 1988, for example, developer Alexander Haagen proposed putting an Ikea furniture store in the Santa Barbara Plaza. The store would have drawn customers to Crenshaw from a wide area, but it would have displaced most of the existing tenants. Galanter, citing traffic problems and contending that black entrepreneurs should be given a chance to develop the site, rejected the proposal.

More recently, a supermarket chain, Smith’s Food King, has been scouting the plaza as a potential location.

William Price, project manager for the Crenshaw Redevelopment Project area, which includes Santa Barbara Plaza, said a councilman’s role in a redevelopment project is crucial. “Very seldom will the council go against another councilman,” he said. “There is an unwritten policy not to override the desires of the council person (in whose district) a project is located.”

Holden said he has not had time to come up with a development strategy for Santa Barbara Plaza, and would continue efforts to enhance community participation started by Galanter.

“I support joint ventures,” he said. “The door of opportunity should be open to all.”

City Hall staffers have been reluctant to discuss in detail how the last-minute redistricting changes occurred. Ronald Deaton, assistant chief legislative analyst to the City Council, said, however, that oversights and mistakes are common when redrawing boundaries. “Some glitches happen,” he said. “It’s just the nature of the process.”

Although the new district boundaries took effect last month, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has indicated that it intends to challenge the redistricting plan on the grounds that it does not provide for adequate representation to the city’s Latinos.

Prized Properties

Los Angeles Councilmen Nate Holden and Mark Ridley-Thomas each snatched a prized property from each other during a series of last-minute maneuvers before the council’s vote on new district boundaries in May.

Holden gained Santa Barbara Plaza, a shopping center in Crenshaw that has been targeted for redevelopment by the city. Ridley-Thomas picked up the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in West Adams, one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious black churches in the city.