NEWS ANALYSIS : Resignation May Help RLA Rebuild Itself

With the sudden departure of Peter V. Ueberroth, Rebuild L.A. has the opportunity to remake itself and broaden its clout in the community, but it also loses its primary link to the corporate investment deemed critical to revitalizing the inner city.

There was widespread disagreement Friday over the immediate impact of Ueberroth’s resignation as one of RLA’s co-chairs.

The organization’s remaining leaders said there would be a smooth transition because the organization had been operating under group leadership for months. Still, some observers argued that given Ueberroth’s pivotal role his stepping down was bound to have a major impact both inside and outside the organization.

“The organization will now be able to develop an identity separate from Peter,” said RLA board member Felicia Marcus, who is president of the city’s board of public works. That could diminish some of the criticism that was precipitated by the mere presence of a white, millionaire, Orange County businessman as the leader of an urban revitalization group.

But Friday’s announcement also means that RLA no longer has the cachet of an organization led by a man with strong ties to big business. “It’s going to be a problem in that Peter brought to the table a set of connections in the business world,” said Joel Kotkin, a Pepperdine University economist who has been a vocal critic of Ueberroth. “He is an icon for those in the business world. . . . There is a mystique about Ueberroth and I think that’s important.”

Others said that who is running RLA is not the central issue, because the revitalization group has become irrelevant to the needs of the neglected areas RLA was created to help. “We are totally unconvinced that there’s going to be any progress by changing the captain of the Titanic,” said Eric Mann, director of the Labor Community Strategy Center, which issued a study last month that questioned RLA’s basic strategy.

The one point virtually everyone agreed on Friday was that the remaining four co-chairs would have to assume more high-profile roles. RLA’s remaining co-chairs are Bernard Kinsey, a former Xerox Corp. executive; Tony M. Salazar, a low-income housing specialist; Barry A. Sanders, an international lawyer, and Linda Wong, a public interest lawyer who has been specializing in education issues in recent years.

Ueberroth’s diminished role presents RLA’s leaders with a significant opportunity, said board member Leo Estrada, a professor at UCLA’s graduate school of architecture and urban planning.

“I’d like to see the co-chairs use this as an opportunity to change the methods of the organization and move away from things that have been hurting its credibility,” Estrada said.

He said the organization’s leaders have to reach out to RLA’s critics if it is to become a more effective force for revitalizing the city.

Estrada also said he thought the co-chairs should heed the critical study issued last month by the Labor Community Strategy Center, which said that the organization’s emphasis on private sector investment over government intervention was fundamentally flawed and that there remained a need for massive infusion of public investment in the city.

But Jane Pisano, dean of the graduate school of public administration at USC, said too much emphasis had been placed on the role of one individual. She said that whatever anyone thought of Ueberroth, the former major league baseball commissioner and Olympics czar could hardly be expected to transform the economy of poor neighborhoods by himself.

“With all Peter’s many talents, I have always felt that the prime determinant to attracting capital to the central city is to turn around the economy of the region and to begin to address some of the long-term issues like education and crime,” Pisano said.

She also said that Ueberroth’s action could be taken as a positive signal. “It may well be a sign that what began in a crisis situation is now becoming institutionalized and that the founding entrepreneur is passing a baton to a leadership group that is reflective of the ethnic diversity of the community,” she said.

It is unclear whether one of the four will become the organization’s central figure. Another significant question is how the city’s new mayor will relate to the organization, which was created by Mayor Bradley as the embers from last year’s riots were still smoldering. Businessman Richard Riordan, who is leading in the polls, has been an RLA board member and a Ueberroth supporter. His opponent, City Councilman Michael Woo, has been a critic of the entire notion of RLA, saying that it represents an abdication of responsibility by government leaders.

On Friday, both mayoral candidates said in prepared statements that they planned to work closely with the group. “If elected, RLA will be a top daily concern of my Administration,” Riordan said. Woo said: “As mayor, one of my first actions will be to sit down with the . . . co-chairs of RLA, roll up my sleeves and get to work rebuilding our city’s economy from the bottom up, business by business, job by job.”

RLA leaders have said that their primary goal is to bring jobs and capital to the city’s neglected areas. A study issued by an RLA consultant last summer said that $6 billion and the creation of 75,000 to 94,000 jobs are needed to revitalize the economy of those neighborhoods.

However, some critics have said that RLA needs to play a more significant role in healing the city, over and above economic revitalization. The organization created a large number of task forces and has projected a sometimes confusing message about the organization’s central role.

Nonetheless, some praise RLA for what it has accomplished in its first year. “They have done a lot compared to other cities after riots,” Pepperdine’s Kotkin said. “But Ueberroth’s hubris has been so great . . . that people have been disappointed. . . . This would be a chance to focus down more modestly on what they’re doing.”

Times staff writer Dean E. Murphy contributed to this report.

RLA Leadership

Rebuild L.A. officials insist that all of its co-chairs have a hand in running the organization and, therefore, the resignation of Peter Ueberroth does not leave a vacuum to fill. However, each co-chair does have an area of emphasis.

* Bernard Kinsey: The former Xerox executive has been second only to Ueberroth as RLA’s public cheerleader and handles much of the organization’s day-to-day operations.

* Barry A. Sanders: A lawyer and longtime Ueberroth associate, Sanders has led the push for small-business development that has become RLA’s emphasis.

* Tony M. Salazar: An expert on affordable housing, Salazar has taken on the areas of housing and real estate.

* Linda Wong: An education advocate, the newest co-chair has voiced an interest in being a liaison with community organizations.