CRA Urged to Move All Operations Downtown

The Community Redevelopment Agency is hampered by internal turf wars and “mediocre” productivity and should close all 10 field offices and reorganize around its downtown headquarters, an agency task force has recommended.

Consolidating workers downtown to oversee redevelopment projects in North Hollywood, Watts and elsewhere would “improve overall organizational efficiency and employee productivity,” according to the confidential draft report obtained by The Times.

The report, by seven CRA managers, surfaced on the same day officials tried to assure a Los Angeles City Council panel that the agency’s financial and structural problems are being addressed.

The CRA board, which asked the task force to come up with recommendations, is scheduled to consider the report at its meeting in two weeks, board Chairwoman Peggy Moore said.

Moore said she had not seen all of the recommendations but is open to considering any idea for making the agency more effective in the face of layoffs and evaporating revenues.

“We’ve asked the agency internally to meet with groups, with UCLA, and come forward with some ideas that they felt we should consider,” Moore said. “We will consider all items.”

But CRA Administrator John Molloy, appointed by Moore’s board, rejected some of the proposals, which were sent Wednesday to management experts at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management for review before they are forwarded to the CRA board for possible action.

Molloy said he might support closing some field offices, but opposes consolidation of all staff downtown.

“That’s an interesting academic study, but we have no intention of doing that,” Molloy said.

Molloy said the proposals will be considered along with other options. “We’ll take a look at what they come up with and we’ll look at that in conjunction with a hundred other things we’re looking at,” he said.

The dramatic reorganization recommended by the task force quickly emerged as an alternative to one under which the City Council would declare itself the CRA board and consolidate redevelopment functions into a new Economic Development Department. That plan, now pending before the council, is opposed by the mayor and some CRA officials.

The CRA was created in 1948 to combat blight by using the property tax revenue generated by new development to provide incentives, including street improvements, for additional construction. Its administrative budget is $24 million, and the agency has spent $1.4 billion over its lifetime on dozens of projects from the Bunker Hill redevelopment to revitalization of South-Central Los Angeles. The redevelopment concept has been criticized in recent years by those who question whether tax money should be used to subsidize private developments.

The CRA task force is headed by Ann Marie Gallant, the agency’s deputy administrator for economic development. The group developed the plan as part of a UCLA training program to help the agency become more effective.

The climate in the CRA “is unhealthy at present” in part because of the cutbacks and financial problems of the agency, according to the report.

“Basically most would agree that morale is low; job frustration is high; and productivity mediocre,” the report stated.

In addition to the consolidation, the task force proposed replacing the agency’s hierarchical management structure with one based on self-managed teams.

“The [current] organizational chart encourages regulatory and ‘turf’ wars,” the report said. “The overall good of the organization and its mission is not embraced by all members of the organization.”

The CRA has cut its staff size from 350 to 210 employees in recent years because of revenue cuts caused by the real estate slump, and the agency is trying to close predicted budget deficits of up to $8 million per year during the next five years.

While those cuts have hurt morale and productivity, the report concluded “it is clear that this corporate climate has existed for some years.”

The task force recommended the agency terminate leases with all field offices and renegotiate its lease for the downtown office building at 354 S. Spring St. to provide adequate space for the consolidation.

The proposal to close all field offices drew mixed reactions outside the agency.

“It depends on the level of business [at the office],” Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said. “If there is not much going on, I think it’s not a bad idea. But I don’t know what we would do without an office in Hollywood. There’s a huge amount going on right now.”

Mildred Weller, a member of the North Hollywood Project Area Committee, said the local CRA office gives the community better access.

“It would be terrible,” Weller said. “We would have no one to go to. The community needs to deal with the agency and get answers to questions in the community. I’m going to go downtown? I don’t think so.”

The task force report said staff cuts have reduced technical support to the field teams, including the availability of engineers, urban designers and architects. The remaining technical support can be better shared by consolidating the project teams downtown, the task force said.

The report, prepared by a team of CRA middle managers, faults upper management for failing to create effective project area teams.

“The existing project team configuration is happenstance,” the report said. “Teams are developed based upon personal networking of support, not through any process of upper management decision-making.”

The task force also calls for the agency to focus its limited resources better, choosing projects that generate new jobs and new revenue for the project areas.