AFTER THE RIOT: THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS : Rebuild L.A. Builds Its Team : As Task Force Gears Up, Offers of Aid Pour Forth

The fledgling Rebuild L.A. task force Wednesday moved ahead with its enormous task, as Chairman Peter V. Ueberroth met with business leaders, toured the new headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and granted interviews to a parade of television reporters.

Although Rebuild L.A. still has no permanent staff or board of directors, certain participants--including close associates from the 1984 Olympic Games that Ueberroth ran--have emerged. Other players include the Latham & Watkins law firm; Kaiser Permanente, the giant health care provider--which has provided a small building--and the public relations firm of Berkhemer Kline Golin/Harris.

Among the early insiders in Rebuild L.A. are Harry Usher, managing director of Russell Reynolds, an executive recruitment firm, and Joel K. Rubenstein, a partner in Ueberroth’s Orange County investment firm, the Contrarian Group. Both served as lieutenants of Ueberroth during the ’84 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“It’s embryonic--but the embryo soon will be a baby,” promised Barry A. Sanders, an attorney at Latham & Watkins, referring to the new organization. Sanders prepared the legal papers for Rebuild L.A., which is a nonprofit corporation created to spearhead revival of riot-torn neighborhoods.

Separately Wednesday, a variety of business-related efforts emerged to provide relief and longer-term financial help for the city:

* Atlantic Richfield Co. said it will donate $500,000 for disaster relief to United Way of Los Angeles, of which $100,000 will go to the Salvation Army and $300,000 to the Red Cross for food, shelter and other emergency services.

The energy company said it also will give $250,000 to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, $100,000 to the First AME Church, $100,000 to Catholic Charities and $50,000 to the Oriental Mission Church in Koreatown.

* The national AFL-CIO donated $25,000 to a new Los Angeles Emergency Assistance Fund; the labor federation’s 89 affiliated unions are expected to kick in their own contributions.

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland also dispatched representatives to Los Angeles to discuss possibly investing some of the group’s $75 million in union pension funds into rebuilding areas devastated by the rioting.

* The owner of Transit Mixed Concrete Co., whose truck driver, Reginald O. Denny, was severely beaten in the rioting, said it is giving $1,000 rewards to the five people who rescued Denny, including one who has remained anonymous, and will donate 100 truckloads of concrete, worth about $50,000, to Rebuild L.A.

“It’s a small step, but we think there were a lot of heroes in the riots of Los Angeles, and we’d like to make a contribution to that effort,” said Edgar J. Marston III, executive vice president of Southdown Inc. in Houston.

* Kmart announced that it completed a land acquisition Wednesday that will enable it to expand its store at the Vermont-Slauson Shopping Center by 20,000 square feet. The company also said it will soon begin construction of a new store in Inglewood and that it is looking for a site for another operation in the southern Los Angeles area.

The big retailer reaffirmed its commitment to the area, where it also has stores in Watts and Compton.

* Hollywood Park in Inglewood pledged to donate $2 from the price of each admission ticket sold on Sunday, for a guaranteed donation of at least $40,000, to disaster relief agencies.

Of the various efforts, however, attention is focusing on Rebuild L.A., which was created last weekend with the blessing of Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson. For more than an hour Wednesday, Ueberroth talked with television reporters at the one-story building owned by Kaiser Permanente that will serve as Rebuild L.A.’s base of operations and which is being renovated to accommodate 15 offices.

In a morning radio interview, Ueberroth described the rebuilding effort as “an incredible opportunity for a chance to do something very right” and one that can serve as “a prototype for a lot of other inner cities.”

He also reiterated his intention to go after long-term commitments from the private sector, rather than getting caught up in a short-term wave of good feeling as the violence appears to fade.

“What Rebuild L.A. is really going to do is try to get enterprise, get jobs, on a sustainable, long-term basis. You just can’t get everyone feeling good about doing something nice right now. . . . We need to be doing something effective in July, August and September, and 1993. It cannot stop. You’ve got to do it right.”

Staff writer Stuart Silverstein contributed to this story.