Expiring RLA Seeks Heir to Carry On Task

RLA, the private agency that served as the city’s main response to the deadly 1992 riots, is now preparing for its own demise, offering to give away its assets amid lingering questions about its legacy.

The nonprofit economic development organization, originally known as Rebuild L.A., was mandated at birth to go out of business five years after the civil disturbances that spurred its creation. Well ahead of that spring 1997 deadline, RLA has invited about 60 agencies, universities and think tanks to compete for its inheritance.

The winner, or winners, could receive $200,000 in remaining cash, plus economic databases, computers and the services of up to six RLA employees. The goal is to continue operation of RLA programs aimed at boosting retail and manufacturing businesses in low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles County.

RLA officials said they expect a choice to be made next month and a handoff or merger to be completed by year’s end.

RLA President Linda Griego said her organization did not want to just shut the doors with no afterlife. “We’ve put in too much time, too much energy. And the need hasn’t gone away,” she said.

The title “Rebuild L.A.” might be incorporated somehow into the name of the successor organization. But the value of the RLA title remains debatable, given the group’s rocky history amid ethnic tensions, unwieldy leadership and inflated expectations.

Even as the embers of the riots still smoldered, then-Mayor Tom Bradley summoned former Olympics czar Peter Ueberroth to start RLA as a showcase of how private industry could lead the city to recovery. But by early 1994, Ueberroth’s initial predictions had failed to pan out and RLA underwent a drastic downsizing.

The organization dropped its early goals of attracting upward of $500 million in post-riot development donations and tens of thousands of new jobs. With its current paid staff of 12, RLA has reduced its mission to undertaking urban economic research for small- and medium-sized businesses, starting self-help networks in the local toy, food, furniture, garment and biomedical industries and attracting new retail stores to the riot zone.

Critics contend that the agency never regained wide public confidence. Some question what the region has to show for the $8.5 million in federal and private funds that RLA received--and used mainly for salaries and support services--.

L.A. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who resigned from the RLA board after two years, described the nonprofit agency’s legacy as “a mixed report, to be kind about it.”

While he expressed admiration for Griego and other current RLA staffers, Ridley-Thomas said RLA “will be recorded as a missed opportunity because of the way in which it was organized originally and the persons who were responsible for doing it and the circumstances under which they were caused to do it. . . . I want to stop short of pointing fingers and blaming anyone, but it’s hard to really point to the impact that RLA has had.”

RLA’s current board chairwoman, Kathleen Brown, said she understands that some Angelenos remain disappointed in the organization based on early expectations after the riots. But she insisted that RLA was successful once it focused on “achievable goals.”

Those include providing supermarket chains with statistical evidence that they could be successful in South-Central Los Angeles--although RLA acknowledges that only a handful have been built since 1992 in the city’s most riot-scarred neighborhoods. Other accomplishments, Brown said, have been helping toy manufacturers comply with export rules and identifying properties that are ripe for redevelopment.

“That doesn’t mean [the local economy] doesn’t have a long, long way to go. Anyone who thinks the conditions have gone away is not dealing with reality,” said Brown, former state treasurer and 1994 Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Now a Bank of America executive, Brown earlier this year succeeded former Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook as unpaid RLA chair. Cook remains honorary chairman of RLA.

RLA’s initial leadership under Ueberroth was expanded to a fractious system of four co-chairs, in part to reflect ethnic diversity. In February 1994, Cook took over and Griego, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor, became the $150,000-a-year president and chief executive officer in charge of daily operations.

From its beginnings, RLA was criticized for the awkwardly large size of its board of directors, which still has nearly 80 members.

Brown concedes that RLA’s databases and land surveys may not excite people yearning for new department stores and factories. But she insists that such research is very important “because I don’t think there was an appreciation of the economic capabilities and economic potential of investing in central cities.”

RLA recently published a directory of about 4,000 manufacturers, each with annual sales of more than $1 million, in low-income Los Angeles County neighborhoods. Funded by Southern California Edison Co., the book is aimed at boosting sales in industries from abrasives to yarn-spinning mills.

Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, thinks the RLA databases are so valuable that his organization hopes to win and continue them. Once RLA settled down to “doability,” it did “credible work and good work,” he said. “. . . You can’t expect them to solve a very long-standing problem, but they did put in place actions to get us to solutions.”

Those difficulties are apparent in the 200 or so properties still vacant or unrepaired after riot damage, RLA statistics show. About 900 other buildings or lands have returned to life, but the 200 are mainly small lots in older areas with little parking, RLA says, making it difficult to attract large retailers.

Lee Harrington, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, said his nonprofit organization is interested in sponsoring the industry networks RLA helped spawn.

Harrington praised Griego for bringing a dose of realism to what had been an overly ambitious agenda. RLA research has strongly influenced local governments to pursue redevelopment for manufacturing, he stressed.

In its recent requests for proposals, RLA said it would review possible heirs based on their history, financial stability and how they help “economically neglected communities.” The application deadline is Sept. 27 and there is no preferred candidate, Griego said.

While the assets might be divided, RLA would prefer that all go to a single organization. Depending on how soon the merger occurs, remaining funds could total $200,000 to $250,000.

Among those invited to bid for RLA’s assets are the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, Local Initiatives Support Corp., the Enterprise Foundation, the FAME Renaissance group, the Valley Economic Development Center, the Urban League and various study and economic groups at UCLA, USC and Cal State L.A.

Griego said she is not among the six employees who hope to work for the new or combined entity.