Don’t Let Up Now That Verdicts Are In : Recovery: A sense of urgency must be applied to speeding up and beefing up aid to victims of last year’s disturbances.

The guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King civil-rights case were welcomed by Asian Pacific Americans in Los Angeles. Was justice served? Probably. Is the struggle for justice now over? No.

Now the focus has to shift from the trial court to the people’s court. Asian Pacific Americans, and many others in Los Angeles, are frustrated and impatient with the slow pace of recovery over the past year.

We have been busy forming new alliances such as Asian Pacific Americans for a New Los Angeles (APANLA), the Korean American Inter-Agency Council (KAIAC) and the Asian Pacific Planning Council (APPCON) to broaden opportunities to include the entire Asian Pacific American community in the rebuilding process. But from the local to the federal level, there is an urgency to focus on the growing needs of all victims of last year’s civil disaster.

For Korean-Americans, who sustained more than $500 million in property and other business losses, the American dream has turned into a nightmare. Only a few hundred businesses had insurance because of redlining. Among the few that were insured, many learned that their policies were worthless because they had been issued by “non-admitted” carriers that were little more than scam operations. Only about a quarter of the businesses have been rebuilt. Latinos, African-Americans and other Asian-Americans have faced similar difficulties.

Many victims are suffering from an increase in mental-health problems, domestic violence and child abuse. To make matters worse, in the past three months, at least 14 Korean-American small-business owners have been killed or wounded in robberies.

The government relief that was promised has created numerous examples of insensitivity and inadequacy. In one instance, a victim sought rental/mortgage assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He was denied benefits on the basis that he had insurance. But the insurance was worthless because it was issued by a non-admitted carrier, and there was no mechanism to allow this fact to be taken into consideration.

Victims who received loans from the Small Business Administration have had equally frustrating experiences. Because SBA policy requires that the money must be disbursed incrementally, the small-business owners cannot adequately cover start-up costs requiring large capital outlays, such as inventory purchases and equipment rental.

We must not be seduced into believing that the announcement of the verdicts brings us to a “safe” or “stable” juncture. The leaders of the recovery effort--including the mayor, City Council, governor, President Clinton and others such as Rebuild L.A., now known as RLA--must implement strategies that are more result-oriented. Here’s a start:

The Clinton Administration should act to reopen cases rejected by the SBA and FEMA and establish a dispute resolution panel with those two agencies in Los Angeles to resolve problems such as the ones described above. The federal government should also conduct a formal hearing to identify the inadequacies of its overall relief efforts in Los Angeles.

Litigation is under way to force offshore insurance carriers to pay policyholders who suffered damage last spring. The state of California should also take steps to regulate such carriers.

At the local level, the reallocation of staff at the Community Redevelopment Agency is a good sign for such areas as Koreatown, Pico Union and South-Central, which are in dire need of the agency’s resources.

We must be creative and inclusive in contributing to a new economic vision of Los Angeles. Competing needs can be balanced. An example is the efforts to convert stores with liquor licenses into needed services, such as coin-operated laundries. Technical assistance and private business mentoring with appropriate cultural and language materials and personnel must be provided. Financial incentives such as lower franchise fees or, as in the case of the laundry proposal, a waiver of sewer hookup fees must be offered. This project is under way as a joint effort of APANLA, APPCON, RLA and the Korean Youth and Community Center.

Recognizing that a Los Angeles that works must be inclusive, RLA has just named an Asian-American co-chair, Linda Wong. She knows the community and has the dedication to push forward an agenda that seeks to connect big business, small business, grass-roots economic and social development groups, government agencies and the community.

We must work more aggressively on the human-relations problems that persist in Los Angeles. Political and community leaders must bring new resources to bear upon mounting tensions. Both city and county human-relations commissions should work with groups such as the Multicultural Collaborative to identify initiatives that work in order to replicate them.

Cornerstones of such initiatives include interethnic skills development programs, dispute resolution programs and coalition-building around issues like housing, child care, jobs and access to credit and insurance.

Finally, we need to address the problem of public safety. We must immediately implement community-based policing. Simply having more officers is not the solution. New policing methods will mean developing broader language and cultural capabilities for greater access; reaching out to underserved and alienated communities, and working with business and community leaders to identify patterns of criminal activity so that more effective prevention measures can be taken.

While we awaited the verdicts two weeks ago, a sense of urgency prevailed. That sense of urgency should not be lost. Justice has only begun to surface.