Riordan to Lead Lobbying Group Seeking U.S. Funds

Mayor Richard Riordan will lead a city delegation to Washington next week to lobby federal officials for anti-crime funds and business tax credits to bolster revitalization efforts in South-Central Los Angeles.

The trip, scheduled to include several meetings with Clinton Administration officials and top congressional leaders, underscores Washington’s importance to the Riordan Administration’s economic development initiatives in the city’s depressed urban core, as well as its pledge to substantially expand the Los Angeles Police Department.

Tax credits are critical to Riordan’s plan to renew the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. That plan suffered an embarrassing blow last month when the Clinton Administration rejected Los Angeles’s bid for a federally subsidized empowerment zone. The designation would have meant federal tax breaks for businesses in a 20-square-mile area that included communities as diverse as Watts and Pacoima, and a $100-million grant to fund social services programs for the poor.

Instead, the city received a consolation prize of $250 million in federal funds--including $125 million that must be repaid with interest. Riordan is seeking approval to borrow an additional $200 million from the same program.

To soften the blow of losing the empowerment zone, the Clinton Administration pledged to seek congressional approval to extend empowerment zone tax credits to inner-city businesses.

A major purpose of Riordan’s trip to Washington is to lobby for those tax credits, said Jane Galbraith, the mayor’s press aide.

Earlier this week, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros held a meeting with city officials to discuss the urban aid package proposed for Los Angeles.

The city plans to use the infusion of funds to capitalize an innovative bank that would work in conjunction with private lenders to provide capital to tough-to-finance business projects in the city’s urban core. The federal funds can eventually be leveraged to produce $2 billion in loan funds, city officials have said.

Joining the mayor on the trip will be council President John Ferraro; Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton; Doug Boxer, assistant deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs; and Deputy Mayor Mary Leslie.

Members of the delegation tentatively plan to meet with the National Economic Council staff of Vice President Al Gore, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, according to city officials.

“We want to say hello to some of our old friends, and make some new friends,” said Ferraro, indicating that the GOP takeover of Congress requires Los Angeles to forge new political alliances.

“A new day has dawned in Washington,” said Boxer, whose mother is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “We want to make sure that the new leadership is made aware of the issues of importance to Los Angeles.”

Meanwhile, the Riordan Administration is firming up its plans to apply for at least $50 million in grants available from the federal crime bill passed last summer by Congress.

Funding from the bill could provide nearly half the cash needed to pay for the mayor’s plan to hire nearly 1,000 additional police officers in the coming fiscal year, according to Mike Thompson.

Thompson, director of the mayor’s office of criminal justice planning and coordinator of the city’s application for the crime money, said he expects the city to seek about $37.5 million in federal funds over the next three years specifically to hire additional police.