SHERMAN OAKS : Local Man Named to Redevelopment Panel

A local resident has been appointed by the Los Angeles City Council to a major commission that oversees redevelopment policy for the city.

The City Council this week appointed UCLA business professor Alfred E. Osborne Jr. to the seven-member Community Redevelopment Agency board, which runs a staff of 300 on an annual budget of $504 million.

“I’m pleased to have been nominated by the mayor and approved by the council for this appointment,” Osborne, 50, said Wednesday.

“It is my hope that the kind of experience that I’ve had, both in other official appointments in the city, as well as some other involvements in the business community, will be helpful to the redirection that is contemplated for this agency.”

Osborne said he is familiar with the controversy surrounding the City Council’s November decision to create an emergency redevelopment area in Sherman Oaks and Studio City, but declined to comment on it.

“I would have to study the situation,” he said.

The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. sued the city in January in an attempt to halt the redevelopment project, which it fears could weaken the community’s influence over local development decisions. The Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce, however, endorsed the redevelopment concept.

Osborne, who is also a partner of a venture capital firm, said he is not a member of either organization. The newly named commissioner downplayed any opportunities he might have to be a Valley or Sherman Oaks advocate on the board, saying, “I am interested in the CRA’s activities citywide. . . . Sherman Oaks is just where I happen to live.”

Osborne is an associate professor of business economics at the Anderson Graduate School of Management and the director of the Entrepreneurial Studies Center at UCLA. In February, 1993, he was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson to the Council of Economic Advisers for California, which counsels Wilson on a wide variety of economic policy issues, including tax reduction and immigration.

Osborne, who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, sits on the board of several major corporations. His term on the CRA board will end Nov. 4, 1998.

Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks homeowners group, said the City Council appears to have made a good choice.

“His credentials are remarkable, and the fact that he lives in Sherman Oaks may allow us to resolve differences between the association and the CRA,” Close said.