Bradley Seen Moving to Oust CRA Leader

By JANE FRITSCH

Nov. 30, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Mayor Tom Bradley is negotiating to force the resignation of John Tuite, the controversial head of the Community Redevelopment Agency, the city’s powerful urban renewal agency credited with stimulating $7 billion in development, City Hall sources said Thursday.

Tuite, who has headed the agency for 4 1/2 years, has had a stormy relationship with the Los Angeles City Council and is viewed by some as out of step with the Bradley Administration’s new emphasis on affordable housing.

Deputy Mayor Ed Avila likely will be named to replace Tuite, sources said. Avila, a former member of the Los Angeles City Board of Public Works, has little redevelopment experience, but is considered highly loyal to Bradley.

Problems flared earlier this year for Tuite when he was investigated for allegedly violating bidding procedures and misusing city funds in hiring public relations consultants. He was cleared, but the agency was criticized for loose procedures.

Tuite said Thursday he has made no decision about leaving his job, but plans to meet with the CRA’s board next week to try to clarify the situation “because of the swirl of rumors.”

A spokesman for Bradley said Thursday that Tuite will “continue to serve as administrator for as long as he so chooses.”

Some supporters of Tuite, and even some longtime critics, said Thursday they feared he was becoming a scapegoat for Bradley’s failure to shift the CRA’s emphasis away from huge commercial developments to desperately needed housing for low-income groups.

“If they remove John Tuite, they’re making him the fall guy for a decade of missed opportunity at the CRA,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who has treated Tuite harshly during his brushes with the council in recent years.

“This is not going to change the agency,” Yaroslavsky said. “This is a superficial, cosmetic kind of a thing designed to create the impression of change, but in fact nothing has changed.”

Whatever Tuite’s fate, a consensus is emerging at City Hall that the 42-year-old agency is at a crossroad. Having presided over the dramatic rebirth of downtown and stimulated $7.5 billion in largely commercial development projects citywide, the agency is now under pressure to embrace housing with greater zeal.

“The CRA is still in the midst of an identity crisis,” said Councilman Michael Woo. “There isn’t a consensus on its mission. It used to be promoting new development in downtown Los Angeles, but today the climate is very different. There’s more of a slow-growth movement. Support for the CRA is much more tenuous.”

“Thirty years ago,” Yaroslavsky said, “the mission of the CRA was to kindle a pilot light in downtown Los Angeles, which was dying. Today that fire should be housing . . . the most critical issue facing Los Angeles.”

Tuite, a former official of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and former Jesuit priest, said Thursday the criticism is baffling to him.

“The agency has been running the largest affordable housing program in the country in the years I’ve been here,” Tuite said. But the CRA must have a dual mission, he added, because commercial developments generate the revenue needed to fund housing programs.

Some CRA insiders said that Tuite faced a difficult task because he lacked the backing of any interest group. “Tuite had no identifiable group of people as a base . . . not the business community, certainly not the service providers,” said a source who participated in CRA decision-making.

As if to counter critics, the CRA announced its new annual budget Thursday, including $100 million for housing construction and rehabilitation for the fiscal year beginning next July. That figure represents 36% of the agency’s $278.2-million budget proposal.

Yaroslavsky said the agency’s commitment to housing remains too small and others complain that they don’t get clear guidance from the agency about its overall plans.

Gloria Molina, probably Tuite’s strongest critic on the council, said, “There’s a lot of concern about the CRA’s direction and where it’s going. They operate almost on a deal-by-deal basis, which is troubling.”

If Tuite does leave, according to Molina and others, the change may prompt renewed interest in a council takeover of the CRA.

As a measure of its frustration with the agency, the council last year considered a complete takeover of the agency, which had operated independently with almost no council oversight.

The takeover attempt failed, but the council established an oversight committee headed by Molina and gave itself greater control over CRA matters.

The results have been mixed. Molina has continued to complain that Tuite and others at the CRA are less than forthcoming with information requested by the council. Several rancorous arguments have erupted at the committee meetings between Molina or Yaroslavsky and Tuite.

The most pressing problem that remains, Molina said, is a lack of a clear statement of purpose from the CRA. For instance, she said, there are no precise guidelines for establishing redevelopment project areas.

Seventeen such areas now exist, the largest of which is the Central Business District. Times staff writer Frank Clifford contributed to this story.