Anger Simmers in His District

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas is justifiably credited with having done more than any other elected official to make the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum the likely home for a new National Football League franchise--the local political equivalent of completing a “Hail Mary” pass.

What kept him at the table so long, battling for a neighborhood the NFL had seemingly written off?

“We cannot allow anyone else to define our reality and tell us what is good about us or what isn’t good enough about us,” Ridley-Thomas said. “We have to push as constructively and as forcefully as we can.”

Less known about Ridley-Thomas, though, is the anger some politically active South-Central Los Angeles residents feel toward him for what they see as his role in blocking a $14-million shuttle-bus contract for a black-owned firm headquartered in his district.

Ridley-Thomas gets high marks in most quarters for creating an empowerment congress in his district, a model for the neighborhood councils in the proposed new City Charter.

But some merchants in the decaying Santa Barbara Plaza blame him for delays in the shopping center’s redevelopment. While their councilman feuded with former Laker star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, one of the plaza’s developers, some businesses went belly up and more are threatened, they charge.

Ridley-Thomas, 44, is a man of puzzling contrasts and contradictions, and assessments of his performance in office careen between diametrically opposed extremes. The Ridley-Thomas held in such high esteem as a consensus-builder by the city’s power brokers is the same man some Crenshaw district merchants say condescends rather than cooperating with them.

Ridley-Thomas “could be such a force for good in this community,” said Frank Holoman, owner of the landmark Boulevard Cafe in the Santa Barbara Plaza and a barometer of local opinion for scores of politicians. “But his sights are set on being the man.”

That sentiment contrasts sharply with City Hall insider Bill Wardlaw’s view of the councilman’s work on the Coliseum: “The people of this broader community owe a great debt of gratitude to Mark Ridley-Thomas.”

In fact, Ridley-Thomas can bring intelligence, single-mindedness and a damn-the-torpedoes tenacity to a big-ticket project such as the Coliseum, observers say. But he can be just as determined when he wants to block a popular neighborhood project, his critics say.

While USC’s School of Architecture honors him with its “Urbanism Award,” Leimert Park artist Kisasi Ramsess reflects a sentiment widely held in the lawmaker’s district by hanging a life-size caricature outside his gallery depicting Ridley-Thomas as a pompous, greedy manipulator.

Even his critics, however, acknowledge his political skills, with one saying he will “outwork and outmaneuver you.” His people skills are another matter:

“He has this reverence for things and this disdain for people,” said a veteran political observer who has worked for elected officials. “He builds things--housing, markets and now possibly a new Coliseum, but he tears down people.”

In fact, the Coliseum project would still be mired in its own end zone if NFL owners and Los Angeles’ power elite treated it the same way Ridley-Thomas has dealt with various serious proposals presented to him, his critics say.

Whether he is dealing with merchants or homeowners on issues as varied as parking meters or a new sewer line, the beautification of Crenshaw Boulevard or the renovation of Leimert Park, he makes one condition clear, said one analyst who closely watches politics in South-Central Los Angeles:

“It’s Mark’s way or the highway,” he said.

To his supporters, Ridley-Thomas is an articulate advocate whose commitment to economic justice is above reproach. His critics see a man who is more autocrat than advocate--a “control freak,” as one put it.

He requires his staff to call him “councilman,” City Hall veterans said. When a City Hall staffer needled him about not having seen his name in the newspapers for several days, they said, he sent her a fat, bound volume of his news clippings--apparently oblivious to the fact that she was joking.

“I never really got the impression that Mark really cares about people,” said a source who has worked closely with him. “Everything he does is very calculated. About the only time he is not calculating is when he is angry. And that is often. He’s a very temperamental person.”

Ridley-Thomas’ political ascendancy in his district is so complete--and has been since his first term, analysts say--that he could afford to feel secure and, perhaps, behave magnanimously. He was reelected in April with 75% of the vote, down from 89% in his last race but a landslide nonetheless. “Security and magnanimity,” however, are not adjectives that come up in descriptions of Ridley-Thomas.

Asked why so many people describe him as arrogant, he responded with a rare instance of self-revelation. He told a story about how some people once complained about his arrogance to his late uncle, the Rev. Eugene Thomas.

Thomas, the man Ridley-Thomas describes as the most important male influence in his life, listened patiently before responding: “He didn’t just get that way.”

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A long workday at City Hall had slipped into early evening, and most of Mayor Richard Riordan’s staff had gone home. Ridley-Thomas showed up at the mayor’s office in shirt sleeves, carrying some papers.

He breezed past a receptionist and asked the mayor to sign something.

“I signed a letter,” Riordan said in a recent interview. “It had something to do with the Coliseum.”

Until then, Riordan had been neutral on competing stadium proposals aimed at winning a new NFL team for Los Angeles. What he signed was a letter supporting the Coliseum project backed by Ridley-Thomas.

Some of the mayor’s staffers were nearly apoplectic when they found out what he had done, but Ridley-Thomas wasted no time exploiting the coveted endorsement.

He trumpeted Riordan’s support and, through the mayor, began to attract business leaders whose involvement gave the Coliseum credibility it had not enjoyed until then.

Even so, putting a pro football team in the Coliseum was far from a done deal. Until last fall, the idea was still seen as little more than Ridley-Thomas’ folly.

Real estate developer Edward P. Roski Jr., who heads the New Coliseum project, remembers when he and Ridley-Thomas would show up uninvited at NFL meetings three years ago, buttonholing team owners wherever they could find them--in corridors, lavatories, parking lots.

“Their comments were: ‘We’d rather take arsenic than play football in the Coliseum,’ ” Roski said.

The very idea that the NFL would consider going back to the stadium that Los Angeles Raider fans had given such a reputation for rowdiness drew snickers, if not guffaws, from some league insiders.

No one is laughing anymore.

NFL Owners Respect Him

The league has officially selected the venerable old stadium--scheduled to be converted to a state-of-the-art facility with a complete renovation--as the home for a new franchise expected to be awarded to Los Angeles.

“Mark deserves 100% of the credit for focusing the NFL on the Coliseum,” Riordan said. “He’s been on it for every day for the last two years. NFL owners have a lot of respect for him.”

Roski says he has never worked with an elected official “as unselfish and as dedicated to not just his district but to the well-being of all the citizens. Mark is a unique individual. He is a master at getting people aboard.”

For his part, Ridley-Thomas says a renovated Coliseum will tie his 8th District “to the greater downtown area. It causes the 8th District to be a part of the significance of Los Angeles in terms of what’s new, what’s happening, what’s creative [and] forward-thinking.”

A new Coliseum will be a vibrant part of a revitalized Figueroa Corridor, running from the new Staples Center arena downtown, south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and beyond, he said.

“An uptick in the real estate market there is already documented,” he said.

And a new stadium will also be a powerful boost to Ridley-Thomas’ political ambitions. He is ineligible to run for City Council again because of term limits, and observers say he might be looking at a run for mayor, Congress or the county Board of Supervisors.

Ridley-Thomas’ route to landing a new NFL franchise was fraught with difficulties, including a fight with Magic Johnson, who backed a rival stadium proposal in Carson.

When he learned of Johnson’s position, Ridley-Thomas was livid, reportedly considering it a personal betrayal. Johnson’s company is a partner in the crucial redevelopment of the blighted Santa Barbara Plaza, and Ridley-Thomas has delayed the project, sources familiar with its progress said.

Denies Rift With Magic Johnson

The councilman denies that he ever had a falling-out with Johnson or that he has delayed Santa Barbara Plaza’s redevelopment. But dozens of people who attended a community meeting on the project last year heard him say something different.

When he was asked if he was delaying the project because he was angry at Johnson, he responded that he supports people who support him, several people who attended the meeting said.

In fact, the delays--not all of which are blamed on the councilman--have left merchants in the plaza reeling. Sheila Jones, who owned a boutique, was forced to close because she could no longer afford to wait for relocation money.

“Had Mark Ridley-Thomas really wanted this development to go forward, it would be much further along,” she said.

Holoman, the cafe owner, said he has lost more than $200,000 in business because of public confusion after the announcement of the redevelopment and the ensuing impasse.

“People think this place has closed,” he said.

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Of all the fights Ridley-Thomas has had with homeowners, merchants and professionals in his district, which runs from Watts to Baldwin Hills, the most talked about may have been his failure to publicly support APT Senior Ride Inc., the Crenshaw district transit company that last year lost a $14-million shuttle bus contract to a Tennessee firm.

To one political observer, the contract controversy is a disturbing example of how “Mark’s personality gets in the way of doing what’s best for the community.”

APT, whose 250-member work force is overwhelmingly black and Latino, is a classic example of the kind of minority-owned firm that needs to be supported in South-Central Los Angeles, its supporters, including Riordan’s office, say.

The company’s owner, Ralph Smith, has provided ambulance and other transportation services in the city for more than 25 years. Until last year, his company also had a city contract to operate a DASH shuttle bus route on Crenshaw--a contract the Department of Transportation had extended for a year.

The company’s offices are in Ridley-Thomas’ 8th Council District; its maintenance yard is in Councilman Nate Holden’s 10th District.

When it bid on the $14-million contract last year to provide shuttle bus service on five routes, Department of Transportation staffers rated its performance lowest of four competing firms.

Then-Councilman Richard Alarcon, however, found the rating perplexing: “If their performance was so bad,” he asked, “why did the city extend their contract for another year?”

It was left to Alarcon, Holden and Councilman Mike Hernandez to argue the case for APT.

Ridley-Thomas never rose to utter a single word on the company’s behalf.

He said he worked vigorously behind the scenes, “hoping against hope” to save a percentage of the contract for APT.

“He worked so hard behind the scenes he was left speechless,” said APT’s lobbyist and attorney John Harris.

If Ridley-Thomas had taken a clear position on APT, “I believe other council members could have been persuaded,” said Alarcon, now a state senator.

He said he knows of no instance when the council did not support Holden and Ridley-Thomas when they agreed on something that affected their districts.

But Holden had sent out an open letter in August, saying Ridley-Thomas and Councilwoman Rita Walters were acting “more like ‘Uncle Toms’ than community leaders” for not supporting APT’s bid.

That letter destroyed any possibility of Ridley-Thomas agreeing with Holden on anything to do with the contract, some City Hall veterans say.

When the council voted in December to award the contract to TCT Transit Co. of Knoxville, Tenn., Ridley-Thomas voted against that move. But by then, APT supporters say, his vote was meaningless.

“I firmly believe Mark’s position was more the result of his disdain for Nate Holden than anything he has against APT,” Harris said.

Ridley-Thomas denies that assessment, maintaining that his vote shows that he supported APT. But many veteran African American political observers share Harris’ view.

In the April primary, community organizer Anthony Thigpenn, who has long been associated with Ridley-Thomas, worked for one of Holden’s opponents, the Rev. Madison Shockley.

Shockley has forced Holden into a runoff, and Ridley-Thomas has orchestrated endorsements for the minister from several members of the City Council, City Hall insiders say. Ridley-Thomas and Walters have announced that they will walk precincts for Shockley, so determined are they to remove Holden from the council.

But several veterans of political wars in the African American community still have a bitter taste in their mouths over Ridley-Thomas’ role in the transit contract.

“That contract is the kind of thing that really matters in our community--jobs, training, resources,” said a former elected official, who asked for anonymity. “There should never have been an issue of giving it away.”