Council Seeks to Simplify Businesses’ Riot Recovery : City Hall: Author of critical report calls one-stop permit service ‘a small first step.’

Reacting to an independent report attacking the lack of “rhyme or reason” in governmental responses to last year’s riots, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a series of measures aimed at trimming the red tape that businesses face in rebuilding their damaged or destroyed properties.

More than 14 months after the civil disturbances, the council directed city building permit officials to coordinate all rebuilding activities at a single “one-stop” counter in City Hall. By a 14-0 vote, the council also asked Mayor Richard Riordan to designate a liaison in his office to work with riot victims and with Rebuild L.A., now officially known as RLA.

Warner Bros. executive Dan Garcia, the RLA board member and former city Planning Commission member who issued a critical report in late April, described the directives as “a small first step” in streamlining the city bureaucracy to help improve business opportunities. But Garcia, whose report also criticized RLA for giving minimal assistance to riot victims, said it remains uncertain just what the reaction will be from owners of the city’s more than 400 seriously damaged properties at which no repairs or reconstruction work has begun.

The “first impediment is convincing the people who were turned off to the system--either because they couldn’t get financing or couldn’t get a permit or couldn’t get information--to have sufficient trust to want to go back through it,” Garcia said. “The issue we’ll have to confront is: Will they trust the city government, or the federal government or anybody else to want to try it again?

“We hope so.”

According to Garcia’s report, highlights of which he presented to the City Council on Wednesday at the request of an ad hoc council committee, 29% of riot victims who were contacted said their primary obstacle to rebuilding was city bureaucracy. Another 39% cited financial obstacles; 21% cited insurance problems and 11% blamed safety and fear issues.

Even with improvements at City Hall, some businessmen may not want to return to riot-torn areas for financial reasons, Garcia conceded. In the case of many small liquor store owners, they might be unable to rebuild because of community opposition, he said.

As a result of the council’s action Wednesday, the city’s departments of Planning and of Building and Safety will issue a report in 45 days on ways to simplify code requirements for rebuilding projects. Other city departments are directed to prepare written materials on financial and technical assistance for riot victims and to report monthly to the mayor and council on the status of rebuilding projects.

The council also directed the Building and Safety Department to operate a single rebuilding counter in the Construction Services Center at City Hall, staffed by city employees who are knowledgeable about the rebuilding process.

Councilman Mike Hernandez, who introduced the measures along with Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, said they are a “first accountability in terms of the city taking a step to be proactive” in assisting riot victims.

Asked after the meeting why it had taken so long for the city to establish a one-stop coordinating counter, Hernandez said: “The bureaucracy operates on its own and functions only upon instructions and that was a very fundamental instruction that nobody had given.”

In fact, a top Planning Department official acknowledged Wednesday afternoon, four signs designating so-called one-stop centers for rebuilding efforts have been posted at various windows at the Construction Services Center.

“The truth of the matter is there have been four signs up there for different departments all involved in the effort, saying ‘Rebuild L.A. --One-Stop,’ ” Deputy Planning Director Franklin P. Eberhard said. “Now we’ll try to filter them through the one counter.”