City Hall Can’t Be Run Like a Boardroom : *Los Angeles: The flap over CRA appointees shows that Riordan still doesn’t understand the need for consensus building.

Much has been made of the rift between Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and African American community leaders, particularly the elected leadership. In recent weeks, a growing number of people have publicly urged the parties to find a way to work together. The basic premise seems to be that if each side gave a little, the city as a whole would gain a lot.

But that premise overlooks the more fundamental problem: that Dick Riordan has not made the transition from corporate titan to municipal leader. This failure is largely responsible for the difficulties he has experienced relating to African American leaders and threatens to undermine the overall effectiveness of his administration. Neither the mayor nor his cadre of business advisors has recognized the necessity of consensus building in public decision-making or accepted the legitimate role of this city’s diverse leadership in charting its future. The current controversy over the mayor’s latest nominees to the Community Redevelopment Agency board is a perfect case in point.

The board of the Los Angeles CRA sets policy for the largest redevelopment agency in the western United States. The bulk of its new project areas spans neighborhoods in South and East Los Angeles as well as targeted underserved communities in the San Fernando Valley.

The CRA’s new administrator and current chairman have repeatedly pledged to focus the agency’s resources on the economic revitalization of parts of the city that have gone largely ignored. Although no longer flush with cash, the CRA is still viewed by many members of the City Council as an important part of an overall effort to stimulate economic development.

Since taking office three years ago, the mayor has nominated 12 people to serve on the seven-member board during the tenure of three different chairpersons. Predictably, this game of musical chairs drew the attention of the council members, who long have been concerned about the control and direction of the agency. Several months ago, some began to openly question whether the board’s commissioners reflected the diversity of interest and background appropriate to the agency’s current mission. Council members complain that the mayor responded to efforts to engage him in a discussion along these lines with polite indulgence at best and arrogant dismissiveness at worst. In so doing, he planted the seeds of the latest standoff, complete with its race and class undertones.

A variety of issues has been raised by council members to justify their refusal to consider confirmation of four pending commission appointments or future appointees absent some meaningful dialogue within the official family. Their stated concerns run the gamut from economic and geographic diversity to a desire simply to have their opinions seriously considered. Their underlying message, however, is clear: They will not be ignored or circumvented in the process of governing the city.

Significantly, the council’s position should destroy the misconception that Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and other African Americans’ difficult relationship with this administration is based on some ethnic imperative to create havoc for a wealthy white Republican mayor. To the contrary, elected and nonelected leaders throughout the city are frustrated by the same inability to have their legitimate attempts to contribute to the city given serious consideration.

Under the city charter, the mayor has the power to appoint city commissioners, and the City Council has the power to confirm them. It ought to be pretty simple. As soon as the mayor and his advisors discern the difference between the dynamics of boardroom decision-making and the give and take traditionally associated with city governance, it will be.