Another RLA Co-Chair to Step Down : Urban renewal: Bernard Kinsey will head a new firm seeking to spur investment in the inner city.
Saying he will serve as chairman of a new firm that will seek to attract private investment to inner-city areas of Los Angeles, Bernard Kinsey announced Wednesday that he will step down as co-chair of RLA, effective March 1.
Kinsey, 50, follows former Olympics czar Peter Ueberroth and lawyer Barry Sanders as co-chairs who have departed from day-to-day leadership of the nonprofit organization, which was created as the city’s main response to the 1992 riots.
RLA, formerly known as Rebuild L.A., is seeking a single unpaid volunteer to replace Kinsey, who earned $150,000 a year, and remaining co-chairs Linda J. Wong and Tony Salazar.
At the time of his appointment shortly after the riots, Kinsey, a former Xerox executive, was little known. Since then, he has received both praise and criticism as a highly visible spokesman for corporate investment in the riot-scarred neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
At a press conference called by Kinsey at RLA headquarters, he announced that he will lead the Urban Development Enterprise Fund, a private real estate investment trust that will attempt to provide investment opportunities in inner-city shopping centers and other real estate ventures.
“I simply plan to take my vision to a different level,” said Kinsey, who added that he will continue to speak out on public policy issues involving private sector involvement in inner-city neighborhoods. Kinsey declined, however, to disclose details of the new venture or the site of its first project.
In his announcement, Kinsey cited RLA accomplishments that included attracting $585 million in “hard-dollar” commitments of corporate investment to inner-city neighborhoods, creation of a small-business loan fund and the distribution of 60 vans to community-based organizations.
Over the months, critics of RLA and Kinsey, who has been the sole African American co-chair, have questioned those figures. For instance, the $585-million figure includes the pledged construction of supermarkets as far from the heart of the Los Angeles riots as Pomona and Las Vegas. Also, several nonprofit organizations that have received vans have criticized RLA for not making it clear in press releases that the vehicles had to be returned after one year.
“The precise purpose for Bernard Kinsey being there was to make sure that African American interests in RLA were strongly upheld. Unfortunately he was never able to accomplish that,” Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said Wednesday. “In the last several months he has largely been trying to beef up his own personal press and making the transition to his next job, which he is obviously doing now.
“But what community benefits can be identified is hard to answer,” said Ridley-Thomas, an RLA board member who has become increasingly critical of the organization.
Invited guests at the news conference included Ueberroth and the Rev. Cecil Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, both of whom praised RLA and Kinsey’s service to the organization.
“Has he been perfect? Hell, no,” said Ueberroth. “But those who have can stand.” No one did.
Afterwards, Ueberroth, asked to identify Kinsey’s biggest accomplishment at RLA, paused more than 10 seconds to reflect and then replied, “One of them is his emergence as a leader and a new voice for change in Los Angeles.”
Kinsey said his new venture will not conflict with his ongoing responsibilities at RLA.
Among the directors of the Enterprise Fund are Mark T. Burger and Wesley Buford of Pacific Development Partners, which has redeveloped a shopping center at Rosecrans and Central avenues in Compton since the riots and has developed shopping centers in Orange County.
Other directors of the new real estate investment trust include Richard Peiser, a USC planning school professor, and Ron Burkle, chief executive officer of Food 4 Less, which RLA says has pledged $40 million in new post-riot investment in inner-city neighborhoods.
