Pacoima Residents Press for Inclusion in ‘Empowerment Zone’ : Economy: South-Central, East L.A. also lobby council panel. The designation could mean $100 million in aid.

Vying for limited benefits, Pacoima residents and business owners urged a City Council panel Thursday to include the economically depressed community in a federal “empowerment zone” to take advantage of grants, tax breaks and job training.

But dozens of representatives from South-Central, East Los Angeles and the harbor area also lobbied to be included in the proposed 20-square-mile zone, making it likely that some neighborhoods will be left out.

“The northeast Valley has been ignored for many years in receiving the kind of benefits the empowerment zone provides,” said Penny Flynn, a spokeswoman for the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., which represents 350 businesses in the San Fernando Valley. “It’s time the Valley got its fair share.”

Lenora Ramirez, a representative of VOICE, an association of religious groups in the Valley, added that Pacoima should be included in the zone because it suffers from gang violence, high unemployment and a housing shortage.

The testimony was heard at a joint meeting of the council’s economic development and housing committees, which will make a recommendation to the full council on which neighborhoods should be included in an empowerment zone application to the federal Housing and Urban Development Department.

The meeting, which was the first public hearing in Los Angeles on the formation of an empowerment zone, attracted about 100 residents and business owners.

Empowerment zones are an idea championed by President Clinton as a way to revive troubled inner-city neighborhoods. Each zone will receive up to $100 million in special aid and various tax breaks. In addition, smaller zones, called “enterprise communities,” can receive about $3 million in grants for social services programs.

However, the zones can be no larger than 20 square miles and contain a population of 200,000. That represents only 4.4% of the city’s area and only 5.7% of its population. The zone does not have to be contiguous.

At times in the testimony, the representatives of some of the city’s most economically depressed communities began a contest of “one upmanship” to demonstrate that they lived in the most needy neighborhood.

“You know what Watts is and looks like: a garbage dump,” said a representative of a Watts community group.

A businesswoman from San Pedro created a stir among some audience members when she said: “We have persistent needs, but we didn’t riot” in the 1992 civil disturbances.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, who represents an area hard hit by the riots, said the city will select the communities for the empowerment zone based on need and “regardless of what their past activities were or were not.”

Much of the northeast Valley is already included in a state “enterprise” zone that offers tax credits to businesses that hire workers who were receiving government assistance, and tax credits for sales tax paid on machinery.

The area is also included in a “revitalization” zone established after the riots that uses tax incentives to promote business renewal.

If Pacoima is included in an empowerment zone, businesses in the area can benefit from the tax breaks provided by all of the special zones.