Another commissioner resigns from CRA: Larry Kirk is second member to quit in three months.

Another commissioner resigns from CRA 

Larry Kirk is second member to quit in three months

The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, stumbling through one of its rockiest years ever, is losing another commissioner.

Larry Kirk, citing an increased workload at his job as general manager of the Los Angeles Hilton Hotel & Towers, resigned from the agency's seven-member board in a May 7 letter to Mayor Tom Bradley. The 50-year-old Kirk said he will stay on until a replacement is selected by the mayor and approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

"My schedule, including travel time, is such that I can't maintain a 60 percent attendance record at the meetings," Kirk said in an interview last week. "It is only fair for the city to have someone who can give more time."

Though the CRA is credited with funneling $7.5 billion in private redevelopment funds into the city since its inception in 1948, in recent years the agency has been assailed for emphasizing high-rise office towers in downtown Los Angeles at the expense of affordable housing and social services. The agency controls a yearly budget of $359 million.

Kirk's resignation is the second in three months from the CRA board.

Last February, the City Council's redevelopment committee rejected the reappointment of commissioner Dollie Chapman because of her role in voting to give departing agency administrator John Tuite a golden-handshake deal valued at $1.6 million over 30 years. Chapman subsequently resigned and the council voted to give itself new oversight power over the CRA.

Other changes may be afoot as well.

CRA Commissioner Frank Kuwahara may also decide to call it quits when his second, four-year term ends in 1992, partly because he doesn't want to be grilled like Chapman for supporting Tuite's buyout agreement, sources said. Kuwahara did not return phone calls.

Former Bradley Deputy Mayor Ed Avila was named acting administrator last March, though many speculate he will stay on full time. Chapman was replaced by urban planner and transit consultant Norm Emerson. Another CRA commissioner, Carlyle Hall, has only been in place since February 1990.

How board turnover will affect the tenure of the agency's powerful board Chairman Jim Wood remains to be seen. Many newer commissioners, all of whom are appointed by Bradley, are considered more independent of Wood than were past board members.

CRA critics on the City Council have blasted Wood, the No. 2 official at the Los Angeles AFL-CIO, for the Tuite deal and the agency's spending priorities.

"The real question is if this is the same agency that Jim took such an active role in," said one board member, who asked that his name not be used. "But one thing about Jim is that he is a survivor."

Nominated by Bradley to the board 14 months ago, Kirk was the only CRA commissioner not to vote for the buyout agreement, if for no other reason than that he was out of town.

Bradley spokesman Val Bunting said a replacement for Kirk would be announced within the next few weeks.

Though commissioners do not formally represent blighted areas of Los Angeles, Kirk was believed to espouse the interests of downtown industry and some are watching to see what constituency his replacement will bring to revitalization efforts.

Besides his job at the Hilton, Kirk is also board chairman of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and serves on the Central City Association's executive committee.