New RLA Chief Likely to Be Corporate Leader : Recovery: Many welcome the mayor’s proposal, saying the agency has become unwieldy. The top candidates to replace the group’s multiethnic leadership coalition are all white men.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said Thursday that he will recommend a prominent corporate chieftain as the next head of RLA in hopes of refocusing the riot recovery agency’s efforts on small-business development, rather than on social programs or large-scale manufacturing.

If Riordan’s recommendations are followed, it is likely that the leadership of RLA will be turned over from a multiethnic panel of four chairs to a lone white, male executive. All of the half-dozen candidates for the unpaid post mentioned Thursday by Riordan Administration officials are white men, and five are the current or former heads of large companies.

Such a choice would bring the riot recovery program full circle from its inception 1 1/2 years ago when 1984 Olympics czar Peter V. Ueberroth was named by then-Mayor Tom Bradley to form RLA, originally known as Rebuild L.A. Ueberroth was soon forced to share power when community groups protested the choice of a white Orange County resident to head an organization whose efforts are focused in poor minority communities.

The outgoing co-chairs are an African-American, a Latino, an Anglo and an Asian-American. But critics said that in the attempt to represent a variety of ethnic groups, the organization lost accountability and efficiency.

On Wednesday, the executive committee of RLA announced a shake-up in which it will replace its current four-member leadership with a single leader. Riordan had been among those calling for the change.

“They ‘politically corrected’ it to death,” said one of Riordan’s top advisers, who asked not to be identified. “I think what has happened now is there is such a frustration with the way things have gone that people are ready to accept anyone, i.e. even a white male, if they think it will make things better.”

A wide variety of business, civic and civil rights leaders embraced the reorganization Thursday, saying that it will streamline the agency, created as the city’s primary response to the riots. Minority representation can still be assured through RLA’s 13-member executive committee and 96-member Board of Directors, they said.

“It makes sense to have a single person in charge at RLA,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, “particularly in light of RLA’s basic mission to obtain long-term commitments from the business community in the rebuilding process in South-Central Los Angeles and other parts of the city.”

RLA’s outgoing co-chairs are hoping that Riordan’s participation in the leadership selection will result in greater cooperation between the city and the private, nonprofit organization. Riordan’s proposals for economic recovery have previously taken a citywide bent, in particular relying on a massive increase in the police force to make Los Angeles more appealing to business.

Whoever takes control of the agency will face a daunting task. Critics of RLA have charged that the organization exaggerated its accomplishments and operated in an unwieldy fashion. They say RLA showed little success in achieving its oft-stated mission of revitalizing neglected areas of Los Angeles County through “the creation of new jobs, economic opportunity and pride.”

RLA board member Jane Small said: “Other than creating a business loan fund and maybe providing an opportunity for different communities to come together, I haven’t seen any real accomplishments.”

Small, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disability, said that she receives weekly reports from the RLA staff, most of them focusing on public appearances by the four current co-chairs--Bernard Kinsey, Linda J. Wong, Barry A. Sanders and Tony M. Salazar.

RLA’s defenders counter that the agency has served as an effective behind-the-scenes catalyst in attracting business investment in neglected neighborhoods. They add that the virulent recession and a dearth of government financial support for inner-city revitalization have thwarted additional progress.

The RLA executive committee will choose the new riot recovery czar with Riordan’s advice.

Among those mentioned Thursday by Riordan Administration officials as the potential RLA chief:

* Richard H. Diehl, who said two weeks ago he would step down as chief executive officer of Home Savings of America in Irwindale and its parent company, H.F. Ahmanson & Co.

* Robert E. Wycoff, former president and chief operating officer of Arco, and chairman of LEARN, the committee that has proposed a reorganization of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

* John E. Bryson, Southern California Edison Co.’s chairman and chief executive since 1990. Bryson served from 1979 to 1982 as president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

* Edward M. Carson, chairman of the board of First Interstate Bancorp, who is widely credited with turning around the fortunes of the state’s third-largest bank.

* Roy A. Anderson, former chairman of Lockheed Corp. In January, Anderson will become chairman and chief executive officer of the Weingart Foundation, one of California’s largest philanthropic organizations.

* Peter Mullin, a management consultant who was one of Riordan’s chief mayoral campaign fund-raisers.

A Riordan adviser said it is more likely that one of the retired executives will be asked to take the job because of the heavy time demands.

“The person who would take that position would have to be a very, very unusual person with nothing else to do,” said Kenneth Ulmer, pastor of the Faithful Central Missionary Baptist Church.

Riordan said a reorganization is needed because RLA has gotten “out of control.”

“There were too many bosses, too many people jockeying for power--trying to do too much and not doing any of it well,” Riordan said. He later backed off somewhat, adding that RLA, “for all its faults, did an infinitely better job than any similar organization in the country.”

Riordan said he will ask for the private, nonprofit agency to refocus intensively on entrepreneurship “particularly among women and minorities,” and steer away from social programs and efforts to attract large corporations.

“What we found is that there really isn’t enough venture capital, risk loans if you want to call it that, for small business,” he said. “So we are going to concentrate on finding the money.”

Riordan said that other agencies are better equipped to direct social programs and that attempts to lure large manufacturing firms are unlikely to bear results in the near future. RLA recently created working groups to focus on racial harmony and community resource development.

“As far as national businesses locating stores here, you want to encourage them to do that,” Riordan said. “But don’t think that you are going to get large, national businesses to put large manufacturing plants in the inner city or any place in L.A.”

Business and community leaders praised the reorganization and the proposed refocus on small businesses.

“It’s important to move forward and encourage more small businesses,” said Ed Vasquez, communications director of the 2,500-member Latin Business Assn.

Lawyer and RLA board member T.S. Chung also welcomed the change: “Who’s ever heard of an organization with four co-chairs? Let’s have a one-headed monster, not a four-headed monster.”

A consultant’s report prepared for RLA last year called for an investment of about $6 billion and the creation of 75,000 to 94,000 jobs to revitalize the city’s neglected neighborhoods. But RLA has been unable to wrest corporate or government commitments that come anywhere near those totals.

Over the last 18 months, RLA has taken credit for helping bring more than $500 million in major corporate investments and 15 private sector job training programs to inner-city neighborhoods.

However, RLA said Thursday that corporations that have pledged $200 million of that total have not yet responded to recent requests that they reconfirm.

Last year, more than one-quarter of the major companies identified by RLA as considering inner-city investments told The Times they had no such plans. RLA leaders said their list was accurate.

But Thursday, RLA officials issued an updated list of corporations that have made commitments to invest in the inner city. Companies no longer on the list include Apple Computer, Bechtel, Dow Chemical, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Pacific Gas & Electric, Ryder System and Unocal.

In recent months, the agency announced plans to scale back its initial focus of relying primarily on corporate investment and turned toward a strategy of encouraging small business development.

Times staff writers K. Connie Kang, John L. Mitchell and Scott Sandell contributed to this story