Activist Sees Aid to Harbor Area as Rebuild L.A. Task : Recovery: Eleanor Montano of Wilmington has plans to win a fair share of post-riot relief to an often-underserved region.

By LISA RICHARDSON

Nov. 20, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It is generally acknowledged in the harbor area that somehow, the big shots up in Los Angeles take the rich cream of revenue brought in by harbor industries and leave residents to live off the equivalent of economic powdered milk.

But lately, talk is more optimistic--primarily because of the promises of help flowing into Rebuild L.A., the organization formed to direct corporate resources to communities damaged by the rioting in April.

And a Wilmington resident is now on the board.

About $241 million in cash, job training programs, computer equipment and other resources lies waiting for distribution by Rebuild L.A., according to new member from Wilmington, 62-year-old Eleanor Montano.

That Montano, who is a quintessential volunteer in Wilmington, sits down at the table with the corporate leaders, entertainers and politicians who make up Rebuild L.A. is seen as a sign of good things to come.

“I’m really excited about it,” Montano said Wednesday. “People have criticized (Rebuild L.A.) but they don’t understand what (it) is all about. We’re there to act as a clearinghouse, to be a liaison between the companies giving the money and the community groups that need it.”

Since her appointment, she has had visions of satellite dishes for youth centers, improved athletic facilities, state-of-the-art computer equipment for local agencies and more.

Many who know her are excited too.

“I am thrilled Eleanor is now on Rebuild L.A. because she is a doer and that’s just what they need,” County Supervisor Dean Dana said. It was Dana who appointed Montano to the county Human Relations Commission, where she has held a seat for 12 years.

“(Rebuild L.A.) is a good idea, but I think it’s a little too much scrapping among people rather than getting on with the job. It’s absolutely vital though, and if it had more Eleanor Montanos in it, it would be a lot more successful,” Dana said.

Montano, who was appointed to the board two weeks ago, has been visiting agencies in the harbor area, encouraging them to submit a list of their needs to Rebuild L.A.

Small, dimpled and fearless, her gift as a community activist is an ability to teach ordinary citizens how to use government and to teach the people in the system how to understand the workings of the community.

“As a little girl and as a teen-ager, I never knew I had access as an American citizen to county, city government agencies for anything,” Montano said. “Had I known that, I maybe would’ve got help and I would’ve got to graduate from high school.”

Once it was difficult for her to stand up and speak before people of more education, money and power, she said. “But then I learned that when you speak from the heart, they understand you.”

Montano’s memberships on commissions include the Los Angeles Police Department Commission community advisory council; Police Chief Willie L. William’s Hispanic Community Forum; the Harbor Area Police Community Council; the Fred C. Nelles Youth Advisory Council, and the Sheriff Department’s Cultural Awareness Advisory Commission.

Known throughout Los Angeles as a liaison to the Latino community, Montano is best known in Wilmington as the president of Mothers and Men against Gangs (MAGS), and for her work with the Los Angeles Police Department.

During the riots in April, Montano, Carol Garduna and another resident baked more than 2,000 cookies, taking them to the police station and thanking the officers for maintaining peace in their area.

Out in the streets, she badgers gang members to “live right,” telling them she’ll “whip their butts” if necessary. She may not be in a gang, but she’s a mother, she tells them.

Some listen to her. Torrance Police Chief Joseph De Ladurantey, formerly captain of the LAPD Harbor Division, said he always listened to Montano.

“Well, I don’t want to say I think of her in terms of my mother, but it’s like she adopted the department and she really treated the officers and myself like they were a part of her family,” De Ladurantey said.

“When she and I would talk, she would communicate to me the feeling and sentiment of the community, the good and the bad. She didn’t pull any punches. She would say, ‘Gee, you guys screwed up you shouldn’t do that,’ and I listened to her.”

Some fault Montano’s close relationship with the Police Department and accuse her of playing both sides of the fence. But it is a relationship that comes naturally to her.

“When I was a little girl, a police officer saved my mother’s life. It was an incident of domestic violence, and he not only saved my mother, but he and his wife took her and her three children into their home. Imagine that. This was a white officer and he just took in a Mexican woman and her three kids.”

“This is my way of saying thank you, I guess,” she said.

Wilmington did not burn during the riots, but only part of the credit goes to the police. The rest belongs to senior gang members and ex-gang members who took to the streets, talking to people, keeping things calm.

“It didn’t burn ‘cause the gang members didn’t let it burn. And for that, some of the homeboys deserve the credit,” Montano said.

Gang members know they deserve credit but, like so many others in the harbor area, they also think they deserve some of Rebuild L.A.’s money. Montano’s plan is to encourage established agencies to seek money to better existing facilities, then try to fund new programs.

So while communities throughout the city wait for Rebuild L.A. to help repair the ills created in part by the days of rioting and unrest, people in the harbor area will be watching closely to see if this time, they get their fair share.