Divided agency guides growth - L.A.'s volunteer panels often act in unison, but not the redevelopment board. The mayor's appointees have been increasingly at odds.
From every perspective, the Aug. 16 meeting of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency's Board of Commissioners went badly.
Tenants of a building in downtown Los Angeles were furious over multiple evictions, and Commissioner Joan Ling wanted to quiz them about it. Commission President William Jackson, who had just been called Osama bin Laden by one angry audience member, did not.
Jackson interrupted Ling, saying the commission needed to move on. Ling then cut off Jackson, saying she had a right to ask questions. The spat ended when Ling and another commissioner abruptly left the room to meet with the tenants.
And that was just the public comment period.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's volunteer boards and commissioners typically act in unison, voting unanimously on most of the big issues. But at the redevelopment agency, the mayor's appointees have been increasingly at odds over a variety of philosophical issues: how to preserve affordable housing, how much to demand from developers, even what a project should look like.
The split is playing out at an agency that pours millions of dollars into 32 redevelopment zones across the city, from booming areas like Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles to faltering stretches of Wilmington and MacArthur Park. With so much at stake, some projects are getting delayed, while others narrowly win approval only after protracted debates.
At its most basic level, the commission has two distinct camps: three pro-business members who favor the free market and three left-leaning members who aren't afraid to demand new, sometimes unprecedented concessions from developers on behalf of renters and low-wage workers.
"You've got both ends of the political spectrum there," said Commissioner Bruce Ackerman, who occupies the pro-business camp. "You've got a conservative, pro-development mentality, and then you've got a very pro- labor approach: 'Let's extract everything we can.' "
No one knows what will happen when Villaraigosa's newest commissioner, Natalie Cole, publisher of Our Weekly, joins the seven-member panel on Thursday, filling a seat that has been vacant for much of the year. But observers on both sides of the divide agree that the commission's deliberations have become increasingly unpredictable.
The commission split 4 to 2 in June, approving a public art project in North Hollywood. It deadlocked 3 to 3 last month over a five-story apartment project planned for Chinatown.
