Council Members Battle Over $3-Million Grant : Riot recovery: Lobbying by Rep. Waters helps win U.S. funds for job training. But Ridley-Thomas questions qualifications of the group that would adminster program.

Rep. Maxine Waters, through personal lobbying, has helped obtain $3 million in Labor Department funds for a South-Central Los Angeles riot recovery organization she was instrumental in launching and that weeks earlier had been denied money from the same agency.

The federal funding, which still faces City Council action, is being hailed by Councilman Mike Hernandez as a big boost for an impoverished inner-city neighborhood. But Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, in whose district the program would be centered, says he has concerns about a lack of competitive bidding for the grant and about the limited track record of the private, nonprofit group that is slated to receive the funds.

The grant calls for the opening of a youth job-training and placement center near Manchester and Vermont avenues by Community Build Inc., which was touted by Waters (D-Los Angeles) after the 1992 civil unrest as a grass-roots alternative to the much-criticized Rebuild L.A.

“The grant strikes me as rather unusual,” said Ridley-Thomas, who has had several clashes with Waters in the past over South Los Angeles development projects. “It’s a red flag that it’s no-bid. It will be a red flag for a number of members of the council.”

Waters, who was responsible last year for freeing funds for the $50-million federal training program as part of an otherwise unrelated Midwest flood disaster relief bill, says she is pleased with helping win funds for Community Build. “I’ll support any organization that’s trying to get some money for our city, my district and our area,” she said.

Through a competitive bid process, 16 communities across the nation, including Los Angeles, were recently awarded an average of $3 million each from the Labor Department to establish coordinated programs to attack such inner-city youth problems as limited job opportunities, drug and gang involvement and teen-age pregnancy. The program, called Youth Fair Chance, is aimed at improving long-range opportunities for residents aged 14 to 30 who live in impoverished communities.

More than 100 communities submitted applications, according to the Labor Department, and the winning bidders were selected on such criteria as the quality of the proposed project and the level of poverty in the community.

Community Build, seeking funding in an Inglewood neighborhood, was not among the 25 finalists, according to Ray Uhalde, deputy assistant secretary of the Labor Department.

The 16 winners were announced in late June. A couple of weeks later, Uhalde said, department officials decided to use monies for the new fiscal year that began July 1 to award Community Build a no-bid, discretionary grant to operate a Youth Fair Chance Plus pilot program focusing on job creation and training at a site at Manchester and Vermont avenues.

Uhalde said that in making the decision, department officials considered both Waters’ input and the needs of the riot-scarred Manchester-Vermont neighborhood, which has a 35% poverty rate. “Yes, we were very well aware of the interest of the congresswoman and her active support for the project,” he said.

The Community Build center will have a stronger focus on jobs than other Fair Chance centers and will give federal officials a chance to test whether such programs bring results, Uhalde said. “Given the riots and earthquakes and Congresswoman Waters’ advocacy for a job component, it seemed like the right program in the right place in the right time.”

But Uhalde also acknowledged that Community Build has limited experience in running job-related programs.

“They do have some experience in jobs programs, certainly not of this scale,” the Washington official said.

According to a Community Build proposal submitted to the city, the agency found full-time jobs for 60 youths during a 12-month period beginning in June, 1993. In addition, it supplied assistance for child care, transportation or clothing to 150 youngsters.

Community Build President Brenda Shockley said in an interview that the organization currently helps find about 20 jobs a month for graduates of job training programs run by other organizations. The jobs are in such fields as cable television and banking, she said.

“There are already a number of job trainers in the target area,” Shockley said. “We’ll coordinate these services and provide the part that’s missing. Job placement, job retention case management and life skills management--’how-to’ skills, such as what do you do when something happens after you have a job. For example, the car breaking down on the way to work.”

She said the grant may also be used to provide stipends for participants of job training programs.

Shockley acknowledged that Waters used her influence to help win the money for the Leimert Park-based agency, which has shown limited progress in fulfilling its initial list of ambitious post-riot projects, most notably a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream plant that has yet to materialize in South-Central Los Angeles.

“Mrs. Waters was very, very vigorous in her support, making sure more funds came to this area,” said Shockley. “She was very instrumental in directing these resources and identifying and assisting the Department of Labor in identifying Community Build.”

The tentative federal contract faces City Council approval because the Labor Department wants the city to help administer the contract.

The issue was scheduled to be heard Aug. 29 by the Community and Economic Development Committee, but was postponed until today at the request of Councilwoman Rita Walters, portions of whose district lie in Community Build’s target area. Walters says she needed more time to study the proposal.

“The opportunity was not afforded me before it came to committee to even see it, let alone study it,” she said. “I want to see what the proposal is, what it purports to do, how it plans to operate and how many people it will serve.”

Ridley-Thomas expressed concerns about Community Build receiving the federal grant after losing out in the nationwide competition.

“Job training programs, economic development programs, entrepreneurial programs are all critically important,” he said. “It is equally important to have such programs operated by entities and individuals that have a track record in this area.”

Ridley-Thomas said that no-bid contracts automatically raise the question of whether the best agency has been selected.

The city Community Development Department has recommended that the City Council give its approval. Hernandez, who chairs the council’s economic development committee, says that regardless of the way Community Build was selected, he supports the program because of the unemployment problem in South-Central.

Hernandez said he has no problem with the fact that Community Build has relatively little experience in the field. “It gives us an opportunity to be innovative and different,” he said.

“I don’t have a problem with Maxine,” Hernandez said. “I’m sure she is aware it’s her program, her reputation” on the line.

Said Waters: “There has not been a lot of money or resources that have been directed at our area since we’ve been hit so hard by the earthquake and the rebellion.

“There’s nothing unusual about me working hard to get resources,” she added. “There are no problems that should get in the way of young people getting assistance.”

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Community Build and Rebuild L.A., the private riot recovery agency that was established at the request of city and state officials, were each granted $3 million in federal funds to undertake their tasks.

While RLA has drawn much attention--and flak--for its lofty goals and meager successes, Community Build has received little scrutiny since it announced its own far-ranging but subsequently unfulfilled goals, which included the ice cream plant and conversion of a 352-room hotel into senior citizen housing.

Shockley said Ben & Jerry’s has given Community Build coupons for free pints of ice cream and may supply ice cream carts for a small youth entrepreneurial training program. But plans for the plant have not moved forward. “Their own fiscal realities were such that they weren’t in a position to expand,” she said.

She said Community Build is currently administering earthquake repair assistance and home loan programs and has purchased the site of a supermarket in Leimert Park that burned during the riots to construct a 12,000-square-foot commercial center.

Earlier this year, the organization, along with Waters, sought to block a development supported by Ridley-Thomas along Vermont Avenue.

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Opposed to a $10-million-plus First Interstate Bank proposal to build an ambitious low-income housing and retail complex, Community Build offered to purchase the bank’s option on the land, suggesting the bank instead join with Community Build to develop a strictly commercial development.

The bank “can take my check for $90,000,” said Waters at the time, referring to the organization’s offer. “I’ll give it to them tomorrow.”

The bank refused and its project continues to move forward with a decision on an architect due this fall.

Under the new federal grant, Community Build proposes purchasing and renovating a 5,000-square-foot building at 8730 Vermont Ave. for its young-adult resource center, coordinating activities with a nearby federally supported alternative high school.

Community Build says it also plans to work with area colleges, unions, hospitals and the YMCA to provide job and recreation opportunities for school dropouts and adults aged 22 to 30.

The Los Angeles city program, which received a $3-million grant in the nationwide competition, will serve youngsters in the Westlake area from a center in the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce building, due to be vacated in October.