2 Years After Riots, Private Sector Proves No Panacea
The Garth Brooks AstroTurf Field, situated in the side parking lot of a Compton shopping plaza, is not your prototypical field of dreams.
Most afternoons, the unadorned hunk of green carpet sits unused as youngsters zip through their homework, practice computer skills and pump iron next door in the state-of-the-art Youth Education Town after-school complex--a $600,000 response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots by the National Football League, country music star Brooks and the United Way.
Those who do play on the synthetic turf must watch their step while running pass patterns. The south end of the rug abuts a metal fence and the west sideline is, literally, the exterior wall of a discount department store.
Donated by the manufacturer and touted by RLA as a $100,000 investment in the inner city, the pint-sized field in many ways typifies the swirl of good intentions, scattered successes, slapdash execution and unabashed hype that has characterized efforts to revitalize riot-scarred neighborhoods of Los Angeles since the civil disturbances that broke out two years ago today.
The rioting, which left 55 dead, 2,300 injured and more than 1,100 buildings damaged, was not just the most deadly U.S. civil disturbance of the 20th Century; it was also the first disaster of its sort in which government’s primary response was to hand over the reins of rebuilding efforts to the private sector.
Within weeks after being appointed by then-Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson to create Rebuild L.A., now known as RLA, 1984 Olympics czar Peter V. Ueberroth launched a public relations blitz trumpeting an infusion of dollars by major corporations to inner-city business development, job training programs and charities.
By the time Ueberroth and four co-chairs announced their individual resignation plans last year, they insisted, in the face of criticism from community groups, that the private effort was an unprecedented success because it had netted $585 million in new corporate investments.
However, a close analysis of the dollar tally shows that it was bloated, an assessment that is shared by new RLA President Linda Griego.
Indeed, the mixed success of rebuilding efforts raises serious questions about the private sector as a panacea, particularly at a time when cities and counties are increasingly turning toward privatization as a solution to budget woes.
Critics say the reliance on the private sector has made it easy for government officials to rationalize their own inaction. The record also shows that the corporate leadership of RLA was no more reluctant than some politicians to make sweeping statements that don’t always fit the facts.
One program included in the $585 million RLA total as a four-year, $40-million, post-riot investment was the Southern California Gas Co.’s home weatherization program. That program, designed to make older houses across Los Angeles more energy-efficient, has been in operation since 1983. Griego said the gas company program should never have been included in RLA’s tally.
Another program counted by RLA as a $30-million inner-city investment was First Interstate Bancorp’s 1992 offer to grant short-term “gap” loans to small businesses that suffered riot damage. Only about $5 million was ever loaned, a spokesman said, because the bank received fewer applications than anticipated.
The largest single investment on the RLA list was Vons’ $100-million pledge to open new grocery stores in Los Angeles and surrounding communities. Although it was not made clear at a post-riot news conference, Vons is counting new stores in North Las Vegas and Pomona as part of the commitment.
When informed of the far-flung nature of Vons riot-related spending three months ago, then RLA Co-Chairman Bernard Kinsey said he had not been aware of it. Yet days later, in announcing his post-resignation plans, Kinsey failed to revise the RLA tally, citing the $585 million at the top of his list of accomplishments.
Griego, who is increasingly shifting RLA’s focus to expansion of small businesses, is conducting an audit to establish a more realistic total and to determine the extent of unfulfilled pledges.
“I’ve had difficulty with (the figures). . . . What did we really gain?” she said.
An early RLA report estimated that an investment of $6 billion and 75,000 to 94,000 new jobs would be needed to revitalize the impoverished neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The official post-riot inquiry also cited inner-city poverty and unemployment as having helped turn the city into a tinderbox.
However, the primarily private effort has come up short.
A total of $280 million in corporate commitments has been targeted for business development, RLA says. All but $60 million of that amount was in pledges from the Vons, Smart & Final, Ralphs and Food 4 Less chains to build 31 new inner-city outlets. So far, 10 have been built, creating 670 jobs. Even if all 31 are eventually constructed, fewer than 3,330 new jobs will result.
William G. Ouchi, a senior adviser to Mayor Richard Riordan, calls the limited success of the private effort unsurprising given the lackluster business climate in Los Angeles. “Economic activity has been slow to come back because the recession has lasted so long,” he said, “and because we are still in the defense build-down.”
That is precisely the problem in having relied on the private sector, said James Johnson, director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Urban Poverty.
“There’s no incentive for them to do it, and secondly, they don’t have the tools to do it alone,” Johnson said. “The civil unrest reflected years of neglect on a number of different fronts--fronts that the private sector was not prepared to deal with.”
“Just because you can pull off an Olympics in the private sector, that was fun and games. (The riots) were hardly fun and games.”
Ueberroth, in resigning from his co-chair post last May, voiced frustration with the lack of government assistance.
Ex-Mayor Bradley, asked Tuesday about the success of rebuilding efforts, refused comment, except to say, “I’m retired.” Bradley now works for a private law firm and remains an RLA board member.
Statistics released this week by Griego, who served as a deputy mayor under Bradley, show that the city of Los Angeles spent a mere $4.1 million from its own budget on specific post-riot revitalization programs.
That figure is only $300,000 more than a jury ordered the city to pay last week in compensatory damages to motorist Rodney G. King for his 1991 beating by Los Angeles police. It was the not-guilty verdicts in the first criminal trial of four officers that sparked the riots.
State funds for post-riot revitalization amounted to $68 million and federal funds totaled $700 million, although much of the latter spending was directed toward policing costs, emergency assistance and loans for riot victims.
After more than a year, the city has yet to identify projects for a $60-million federal economic development loan meant to spur post-riot commercial development. Indeed, the City Council last January turned over half of the funds to the city Housing Department to construct affordable housing.
Ouchi says the Riordan Administration’s inner-city revitalization strategy leans heavily on citywide efforts, including upgrading of the Alameda Street industrial rail and truck corridor, improved mass transit, programs to reduce crime and a hoped-for $100 million in federal empowerment zone funding that would provide tax credits to inner-city businesses that hire neighborhood residents.
With official revitalization efforts moving slowly, grass-roots community groups have turned elsewhere for help. The Coalition of Neighborhood Developers, composed of 56 nonprofit civic, church and economic development agencies in central and southern Los Angeles, recently received a $32-million commitment from the Local Initiatives Support Corp. to build affordable rental housing and develop a retail shopping plaza that would include a new supermarket. LISC is a national organization founded by the Ford Foundation that channels private-sector resources to nonprofit developers.
Some businesses have also come forward. Earvin (Magic) Johnson and officials of Sony Pictures Entertainment announced plans this week to bring a 12-screen movie theater to Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.
RLA’s list of post-riot corporate investments shows a mixed record of results.
Among the more striking failures was the Paradise Market, an open-air swap meet, free clinic and learning center that was the brainchild of then-businessman and now-mayor Riordan.
Almost from the week it opened, most of the 15 vendors reported little business. And several complained after it closed in June, 1993, that Riordan, who contributed more than $300,000 to start up the South-Central venture, did little to assist after reaping a flood of publicity.
Riordan says the market failed because it was difficult to generate business overnight. “Things that evolve slowly tend to do better,” he reflected.
Several other privately funded programs have been slow in getting off the ground.
A new health center in a closed-down Kaiser Permanente building in Inglewood was supposed to be fully operational last month. However, it is now providing only limited outpatient services.
Eight months after announcing the formation of the Neighborhood Beverage Co., officials of the African American-owned firm are still seeking financing for the $30-million venture. The soft drink bottling plant and warehouse will not open for business before early next year, they now predict.
Chevron Corp. donated $1.3 million to purchase a building for a South-Central adult job training center to be operated by a nationally recognized training agency. The Opportunities Industrialization Center has so far graduated only nine retail sales students and helped to place four of them in jobs.
Some of the most successful inner-city ventures have been the expansions of chain retailers in riot-ravaged neighborhoods.
Chief Auto Parts quickly rebuilt six of seven stores gutted during the riots, repaired 27 others that were looted and opened seven new outlets in south Los Angeles. The Smart & Final chain has added four new inner-city groceries.
Bank of America, meanwhile, loaned $25 million to small businesses damaged in the riots, requiring no repayment for three years.
Perhaps the most forward-thinking response has been a handful of youth training and job programs providing inner-city youngsters a head start toward college and careers.
Nakia Antee, 18, one of the first graduates of the $2-million Shell Oil Co. youth job training center, is the first member of her family to attend college. She says her part-time post in a Century City attorney’s office helped set her sights on a career as a criminal lawyer.
“A lot of high school students don’t have the opportunity to work in any environment,” said Antee, who still works part-time while attending Cal State Dominguez Hills. “If you have a mentor behind you, it gives you the initiative to go ahead and excel.”
Program officials help find after-school jobs for 75 South-Central high school students a semester and pay 50% of their salaries. Once a week, the students, who work in hospitals, retail stores and law offices, attend a class in the program’s modern classroom behind a rebuilt service station. Topics include resume writing and dressing for success.
“We felt if we start with young people, we can make a difference in changing their lives,” Shell spokesman Bob Russ said.
What’s in it for Shell? “We feel long-term, by providing these meaningful opportunities for South-Central residents, it will eventually translate into increased gas sales,” Russ said.
The NFL center in Compton provides a safe, structured after-school educational and physical training program for youngsters who might otherwise be tempted to spend the time watching cartoons at home or hanging out with friends on some of the community’s meanest streets.
One recent afternoon, Floyd Hodge, a seventh-grader, sat in a classroom in the center, preparing a list of his personal strengths, weaknesses and goals at the request of a tutor.
On the plus side, Hodge listed willpower, the possibility of attending college and people trying to encourage him.
On the debit side were entries that no 14-year-old in a saner world would have to think about: “People saying they’re going to kill me,” and the tragic death of his grandfather, a youth baseball coach who was struck by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting at a city park.
“The center gets me away from a lot of things like gang violence,” Hodge said. “If I hang out, there’s a chance of me getting shot. If I’m here, I’m safer.”
