Brown Calls for Pilot Project in South L.A. : Economy: Clinton Administration officials appear receptive to proposal by Assembly Speaker to test investment, training and service programs here.

California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown on Monday urged the Clinton Administration to launch a massive federal pilot project in South-Central Los Angeles that would feature a wide range of the President’s national economic and social programs.

Brown recommended that the Administration quickly implement such Clinton proposals as tax incentives for small businesses, large investments in public works projects, job training for youths and his national service program to pay college tuition for needy students.

“All of those things can be done immediately in Los Angeles,” Brown said in an interview. “The laboratory is sitting there. All you’ve got to do is bring in the ingredients.”

His suggestion, Brown said, was enthusiastically received Monday in private conversations with three members of Clinton’s Cabinet--Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Brown said he intends to pitch the idea to Clinton in an Oval Office meeting scheduled this week.

Asked about Brown’s idea, White House aides shied away from the specific label of “pilot” projects, but emphasized Clinton’s desire to channel a large proportion of the money in his program to Southern California.

“A lot of this program is aimed at areas with high unemployment,” said one senior Administration official. “And if you look at the metropolitan areas with the highest prolonged unemployment in the country, you’re looking at Southern California.”

Last month, the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan region had the highest unemployment rate of any urban area in the nation. Los Angeles County, with an 11.2% unemployment rate, was close behind.

“We’re going to focus a lot of resources there,” said another senior White House aide. “We might not want to use the same language Brown uses,” but the end result may not be very different, the aide added.

Administration officials have conflicting pressures in deciding how much to target their programs on Southern California.

On the one hand, officials believe that the poor economy in California, which makes up roughly one-eighth of the nation’s total economy, acts as a drag on the overall national recovery. California also served as a crucial part of Clinton’s electoral coalition and is key to his hopes of reelection.

On the other hand, members of Congress from elsewhere in the country resent the size and power of the California delegation, and Administration officials are wary that a move to overtly funnel aid to California could backfire.

The possibility of more government assistance was welcomed in South-Central Los Angeles, said Barry Sanders, co-chairman of Rebuild L.A., the volunteer organization headed by Peter V. Ueberroth.

“We want more government programs and we need more,” Sanders said. “They will fit in just fine.”

In Washington, Brown led a delegation of 63 state lawmakers on a three-day trip to lobby the federal government for aid in reviving California’s anemic economy.

State Senate President Pro-Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) said he is more interested in making sure Clinton and his top policy advisers are focused on the California economy than a specific pilot project.

“As long as they have a real California plan, I don’t think it is essential that you block out Los Angeles as the singular and only beneficiary of any program,” Roberti said. “But it doesn’t hurt to ask. I think the Speaker is doing the right thing in trying to zero in attention on this.”

Brown first proposed the pilot project during a private breakfast on Monday with Tyson, a UC Berkeley professor of economics before joining the Clinton Administration. Tyson had a positive response, Roberti said.

Kantor, a Los Angeles attorney, told Brown to “make sure I personally bring it up with the President,” the Assembly leader said.

Brown’s staff in Sacramento is preparing a memorandum on the pilot project proposal to send the Clinton Administration today.

The pilot project would be a tonic for a depressed South-Central Los Angeles community, Brown said.

“With the Reginald Denny trial, the Rodney King trial, the environment around the potential teachers strike plus the history of Los Angeles . . . Bill Clinton could use his awesome powers right now (and) make it his pilot project,” Brown said. “In six or seven months, the whole world could see that, at least on a microscopic scale, what he’s talking about can work.”