EYEWITNESS: BERNARD KINSEY : ‘We’ve Got to Make This City Work’ : Rebuild L.A.: A solid record, but it took on too much, struggling almost alone on overwhelming problems.

More than 20 months ago, I joined Peter Ueberroth and Rebuild L.A. as chief operating officer. I was coming from a background in the private sector with the Xerox Corp., where I held a division vice presidential position for 10 of 20 years I worked with them.

Along with many other people, I had believed that the problems of the inner cities are the biggest issues facing this country. The future of our cities and of the country rests on how we solve the problems of the underserved and neglected areas. RLA represented to me a clear economic model to bring businesses back into the inner cities--which many had left over the previous 20 years. This has been a unique experience with a mixture of both disappointment and success.

We were able to attract more than $585 million from the private sector to an area that had previously received nothing--there were not enough grocery stores, paint stores, drugstores; not enough loans, investment and banks.

We haven’t lived up to everybody’s expectations, but the reality is that nobody has ever tried to do what we did, and under extremely difficult circumstances.

During the life of RLA, we elected four new council persons, a new county supervisor, a new mayor, a new President, two new senators and got a new police chief. Despite Peter Ueberroth’s resignation and, most important, the worst recession in the history of this city, RLA has remained strong and resolute. RLA has been a gift to the city of Los Angeles.

Have we solved the city’s problems? No. Have we created a model that should continue? Yes. We made our share of mistakes and we missed some opportunities. For example, it was a mistake to have four co-chairs. We knew that all along, but the citizens demanded visible diversity. It’s also true that we strayed from our initial focus on economic development only. We were pulled by many forces into child care, education and all the other areas that are important but for which, frankly, we didn’t have distinctive competence and expertise. It thinned us out so much that it really diluted our effectiveness.

Everyone has reminded me for months that RLA is not the only game in town, but no one can beat our track record. Let’s look at the accomplishments:

* More than $585 million from the private sector, in hard commitments.

* Thirty-two new supermarkets announced, 11 completed or under construction.

* Eighteen new training programs.

* A $20-million loan fund established by RLA.

* Volunteer programs with more than 2,500 people working someplace in our city each weekend.

* Sixty new GM vans lent to community-based organizations.

* $5.5 million invested in three black banks.

* More than 61% of the buildings damaged or destroyed in the riots rebuilt or under construction--Crenshaw is 78% rebuilt, Broadway 62% and Florence 60%, to name a few.

All of those accomplishments have involved zero cost to the taxpayers of this city. Again, RLA has been a gift to the city.

The reality remains that, despite this effort, the problems are immense. We estimated at the beginning that it would take a $6-billion fix. I said when I took this job that we had to now put back as much into the inner city as we took out over the past 30 years.

We never expected that RLA alone could accomplish that. We knew that a strong federal, state and local government effort, coupled with the private sector and the community, could begin to solve these long-festering problems. The sad truth is that our effort ended up being basically the only effort.

We had better face up to the fact that government, banking, foundation and investment capital, on all levels, has not been available to solve the problems of Los Angeles and other inner cities. A pro basketball player, Larry Johnson of the Charlotte Hornets, recently got an $84-million contract--more than all the government funds put into inner-city Los Angeles since the riots.

Face it, RLA became the whipping boy for the failure of our society to deal with the problem. Nobody else stepped up. But look at the negative press that Ueberroth and RLA received. The guy spent 14 hours a day for 14 months, away from his family, living at the Bonaventure Hotel, knocking himself out trying to solve the problem. But I had warned him--this is not the Olympics. There are no opening and closing ceremonies, there’s just the daily grind of trying to solve the many problems that confront day-to-day life in the inner city.

People put too many expectations on RLA, lost sight of its significant accomplishments and never focused on the massive needs of the community, which RLA was never in a position to deal with. That’s how we got into the mistake of being expected to solve problems of American urban life that went far beyond our charter.

What happened is understandable. In the vacuum left by the failure of other institutions to respond to the needs of this city, RLA became the repository for everyone’s hopes and dreams. We received 4,500 resumes for 22 jobs, we got more than 4,000 calls a day, we got 6,000 requests to volunteer. We had so many calls that we had to change the phone system, and so many people came through the front door that the carpet had to be replaced.

They came to us with every conceivable problem and proposal, many of which we had no ability to deal with. We never could get across to people that we were not a funding source, but that didn’t stop them from asking. In retrospect, we should have dealt only with issues of economic activity and refused to get sidetracked.

But whatever our failings, RLA represented an immense outpouring of community support and goodwill. I have the highest respect for our co-chairs, staff, loan executives, board and task-force members and thousands of volunteers. Let’s not forget the hundreds of companies who fundamentally changed their approach to the inner city. None of this could have happened without Peter Ueberroth. I want to especially thank the black, Latino, Asian organizations that put aside their differences to advance the goals of RLA.

Although I’m returning to the private sector, I intend to maintain my commitment to economic development, to encourage investment in all parts of our city. In every city, the problem is similar: We need to involve the uninvolved, we need to reach out to all classes and ethnic and racial groups, and they must believe they have a stake in this. We must learn to utilize the historically underrepresented talent we have in the black, Asian, Latino and female populations.

I was successful at Xerox because my team always looked and performed like a winning Olympic team. The problem is not just investment. The problem in the inner cities is that most of the people are not in the game. They must be included at all levels of government, boardrooms, business, banks, foundations and anywhere else that does not utilize all of the talent this country has to offer.

We’ve got to make this city work. My 16-year-old son, Khalil, shouldn’t have to be afraid to go to a football game or a dance for fear of being shot or being a victim of senseless gang violence. I want to continue to live here--I like the beach, the weather, the people, the diversity of culture and the economic opportunities. I don’t want to flee, I don’t want to have to hide behind high gates, so my only choice is to make this city work. If anybody asks you how Bernard Kinsey feels about his tenure at RLA, tell them you heard it straight from me: I loved every minute of it.