Rift Between Black Leaders, Mayor Widens

With his stunning veto last week of a controversial housing and commercial development project in a riot-scarred section of south Los Angeles, Mayor Richard Riordan has deepened a rift with some of the city’s most prominent black political leaders and prompted a harsh outburst from his heretofore circumspect predecessor, Tom Bradley, who called it a blatant act of retribution.

In siding with nearby homeowners who want an all-commercial development for the struggling district at 81st Street and Vermont Avenue--once the proud site of Pepperdine University--Riordan also thwarted the will of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the mayor’s strongest council critic.

And with the veto, Riordan stepped deeper into a longstanding feud between the councilman and another powerful African American leader, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Waters--one of the few black elected officials allied with the white, Republican Riordan--and her neighbors in the pleasant, middle-class enclave of Vermont Knolls have battled against the project for more than two years. But many others in the vicinity have backed the development as key to revitalizing the area by providing new businesses, restoring the historic remains of a Pepperdine building and constructing subsidized townhouses for first-time home buyers.

The hotly debated and reworked project, to be financed largely by First Interstate Bank, won approval on a 10-0 City Council vote earlier this month.

And Riordan acknowledged Thursday, as he signed his veto letter in front of a dozen applauding homeowners, that it might well be overridden.

Bradley, who until now has stuck by his decision not to publicly comment on the man who succeeded him in 1993--wasn’t buying it.

“Dick Riordan, just because he has a hatred for Mark Ridley-Thomas, vetoed it . . . and we were stunned,” Bradley told The Times after a meeting of the board of RLA, the riot recovery organization the ex-mayor helped found.

“You know, since he’s been in office, he and Mark have not [gotten along]. Now, he’s punishing the whole community [to get at] Mark,” Bradley said.

Bradley said the veto further erodes Riordan’s limited support in the black community, where the first-term mayor in 1993 was outpolled more than 5 to 1 in precincts with predominantly black voters. The mayor also registered a poor showing among blacks in a Times poll marking Riordan’s second anniversary in office July 1.

“He claims not to know the source of the animosity in the black community, and yet he ignores some of the things he’s done,” Bradley said. “People try to advise him, he just doesn’t listen. He’s headstrong and once he has a point of view on something, that’s it.”

Riordan said he was swayed by high cost estimates as well as by the objections of the African American neighborhood group he met with to announce the veto.

“The people who live in the vicinity of the project . . . were overwhelmingly against it . . . [and] my main trust as mayor is to empower communities, to have control over where they live.”

Ridley-Thomas, who backed Riordan’s opponent during the mayoral election, has been the mayor’s most frequent critic.

Riordan denied having a hatred for Ridley-Thomas and said Bradley spoke without knowing all the facts.

Riordan, a prosperous businessman, also pointed out that he has spent “millions of my own dollars” seeking to improve the lives of south Los Angeles residents, including donating thousands of computers to schools and backing health and scholarship programs. Since his election, he said, he has helped former Laker superstar Earvin (Magic) Johnson win permits to open his movie theater complex and has sought to improve city parks and other public facilities in south Los Angeles.

In siding with the Vermont Knolls/Vermont/Manchester and Vicinity Assn.--and breaking an unwritten but cherished City Hall rule about acceding to the wishes of a council member when it comes to district matters--Riordan made his point in an unusual manner.

The mayor invited City Hall reporters to sit in on a 45-minute meeting Thursday afternoon with representatives of the group, several of whom had spoken up at the City Council meeting on the project two weeks before.

He listened as the residents explained their opposition to the project, led by association President Julie Simmons, who said the group has hired a business consultant with a $200,000 federal grant to put together an alternative plan.

Others spoke poignantly of the days when the community had been a thriving commercial district and a great place to raise a family.

Then, acknowledging the reporters, Riordan asked whether any had questions. When one asked whether this meeting signaled his intention to veto the project, the mayor replied, with a laugh: “I’m going to make up my mind in the next 10 seconds.”

Then, he pulled out his two-page veto letter and signed it while the homeowners applauded heartily.

Ridley-Thomas, who contends that the project is a key to revitalizing the neighborhood, reacted angrily, predicting he will muster the 10 votes needed to override Riordan’s veto.

“This is a slap in the face to the people of south Los Angeles, and they will let him know it,” Ridley-Thomas said. “I’m calling my constituents and my colleagues, and he will have this put back in his face.”

Like Bradley, Ridley-Thomas insisted the group that met with Riordan did not reflect the sentiment of the overall south Los Angeles community.

Ridley-Thomas said he had “no doubt” that the mayor had additional political motives in mind.

Riordan, he asserted, was seeking to help his friend Waters. “He ought to have better sense than to be manipulated by an individual who is driven by ego more than anything else,” declared Ridley-Thomas. “She has intimidated [the mayor’s advisers] into thinking she controls south Los Angeles. She doesn’t.”

Councilwoman Rita Walters, another African American who has been critical of Riordan, said pleasing Waters was “about the only reason I can find that he would do such a thing--other than he has some pique with Mark.”

“I was just astounded that he goes around talking about revitalizing Los Angeles and then he vetoes a project that will assist it,” Walters said. “This is a project that had gone through a great deal of community discussion and meetings . . . for him to sit cloistered in his office and veto it is just reprehensible. . . . I’ve never heard of a thing like this happening.”

Riordan denied Friday afternoon that Rep. Waters had any influence in his decision. “Although Maxine happens to be a good friend of mine, it’s not true. If south Los Angeles is going to turn around, the people have to be empowered there and Mark Ridley-Thomas has told them, ‘I don’t care about their opinion.’ ”

“I think Mark ought to be working with us to help make the life of the people in his area better,” Riordan added.

Waters refused to speculate on the political impact of the veto. Nor would she respond to Ridley-Thomas’ accusations. “How do you answer something like that when someone speculates about your character?” she said in a telephone interview.

By vetoing the project, Waters said, Riordan was responding first and foremost to the interests of the neighborhood.

“He was heavily lobbied by the citizens in the community and he was impressed,” she said. “The day has come where economic development thinking is driving the actions of the community. . . . They want businesses, commerce, economic development, jobs and ownership.”

Linda Griego, president of RLA and a First Interstate board member, said the project would serve as an economic stimulus in a neighborhood where empty lots remain from riot-related arson.

“The thing that investors have told us is they want stability in communities,” Griego said. “And the more financial activity going on in investment by businesses--all of that says stability.”

The First Interstate project, which initially called for 130 units of low-income housing, was significantly revamped after several community meetings and a competition among more than a dozen top-flight architectural firms.

The city would provide a $1.7-million loan for acquiring the largely vacant lots for the 75,000-square-foot project, which has been billed by Ridley-Thomas as the largest single private investment in the area since Pepperdine University departed for Malibu more than two decades ago.

John Gray, First Interstate executive vice president, said the bank, one of many lending institutions long criticized for a dearth of inner-city investments, will wait for direction from the City Council before deciding how to proceed. “It’s now up to City Council,” Gray said. “They unanimously approved it before.”