Community Colleges to Inherit RLA Funds, Records

Leaders of RLA on Wednesday chose the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District to inherit the assets of the private agency that was formed to help the region economically recover from the 1992 riots but never fulfilled its early promises.

RLA’s databases and about $200,000 in cash will be given to a new arm of the college district by January, according to agency President Linda Griego. RLA, formerly known as Rebuild L.A., will go out of business a few months prior to the end of its five-year mandate, handing off a controversial legacy and programs aimed at boosting retail and manufacturing businesses in low-income neighborhoods.

“I see it as the work we’ve done continuing. If it were going to stop, I would feel very sad. It’s not stopping,” Griego said.

By stressing student training for new jobs, the community college district won RLA’s assets over 16 other nonprofit agencies and educational institutions that applied from across Los Angeles County. In final interviews, the competition was cut to the college district, an economic development organization at USC and the Local Initiatives Support Corp., an agency that has been an advocate for affordable housing.

A strong appeal of the 95,000-student college district is its broad geographic reach, with colleges in the San Fernando Valley, Harbor, Eastside and Westside areas, RLA leaders said. Four campuses are in predominately low-income neighborhoods: Los Angeles City, Southwest, East Los Angeles and Los Angeles Trade-Tech colleges.

In addition, the district’s proposal to link industries with classroom programs was very important, officials said. The district’s new chancellor, William Segura, who arrived in August, won praise in his previous job for connecting Austin Community College to Texas high-tech companies.

“It’s a natural partnership,” Segura said Wednesday of the district’s education programs and RLA’s networks of small and medium-sized business in the toy, food, furniture, garment and biomedical industries. The goal, Segura, will be to “boost the quality of life in the neediest of neighborhoods.”

Some RLA board members reportedly voiced concerns about the college district’s financial troubles and declining enrollments. They feared that RLA’s programs could be lost in the large college bureaucracy. But those were overcome in interviews with college officials, according to Griego.

The new college agency will be called the Public Resource and Occupational Support Program for Economic Revitalization. College officials said it will be a spinoff of a Trade-Tech program called the Community Development Technology Center.