CITY JOB CENTER DRAWS SCRUTINY : VALLEY LEFT OUT OF PILOT PROGRAM.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

Nearly seven months after Los Angeles Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas obtained a personnel office in his South Central district as part of an experiment in civic outreach, thousands of applicants for city jobs have gone through its doors.

Other council members - including representatives in the San Fernando Valley, where a similar service was shut down in 1994 - are beginning to take notice of the unique pilot program, which makes it easier for local residents to apply for city jobs.

The center has received some scrutiny because of rising concern over whether the Valley or other communities are getting their ``fair share'' of city services.

Council members said the job center program is important because more than 2,000 city job openings are at stake each year.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who represents Hollywood and chairs the Personnel Committee, said she will review whether the Personnel Department should open satellite offices in other regional locations to process the more than 60,000 job applications the city receives annually.

Most of those applications are processed through the downtown Civic Center personnel office. The South Vermont Avenue satellite personnel office, housed in the Constituent Services Center in Ridley-Thomas' district, is the only one of its kind in the city.

``I think that Vermont and Manchester is a good location to have one,'' Goldberg said. ``But it is not the only one we need. There definitely should be one in the Valley.''

Councilwoman Laura Chick, whose district includes Encino, Woodland Hills and Reseda, said she did not know about the Vermont Avenue satellite personnel office, and that underscored the need for a more comprehensive review of the way the city divides its services.

``I am saying that there should have been more sharing of the information on the part of the Personnel Department because it might have been the will of the council to find another small amount of money to restore part of the service to the San Fernando Valley,'' Chick said. ``There don't always seem to be clear criteria for what services close and open in the San Fernando Valley.''

Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, said the Valley would benefit by having its own satellite personnel office.

``It is slightly unfair,'' Kyser said of the lack of such a center in the San Fernando Valley, where 1.2 million people or 35 percent of the city lives.

``One can see the rationale for having the office in South Central, but there are areas in the Valley that are in economic distress,'' he added. ``You would want to make it available to them.''

The Personnel Department shut down its satellite at the Van Nuys Civic Center two years ago, citing budget problems, and has no plans to reopen it, said Phil Henning, the city's assistant personnel director.

Henning said the department was spending about $70,000 per year to staff the Van Nuys office with one full-time person and one part-time person five days a week.

By contrast, he said the department spends about $8,000 annually on two part-time employees who run the South Central satellite, which is open two half-days a week.

``The decision to close the Van Nuys office was an economic one,'' Henning said. ``The decision regarding the office (in South Central) came because it was a fairly limited commitment and we felt that it was worth doing on a pilot basis.''

At the South Central office, the daily number of visitors can fluctuate from a handful of job hunters to thousands when the department actually posts openings.

Ridley-Thomas' office said more than 1,000 applicants showed up at the office one day in June when the city announced about a dozen openings in various city departments.

Chick said she will ask the city to look at re-establishing a Valley job application center contingent on there being enough city jobs to justify the expense of operating it. In addition, she said she wants a broader assessment of how city services are allocated among different communities.

``If we are not going to give services in one community and give it somewhere else, we have to look at the big picture, not just cost savings,'' Chick said.

Ridley-Thomas said that his intention was not to secure services for one area at the expense of others. He noted that constituent services centers - like the one in his district that houses personnel employees and other city departments - could be placed in other parts of the city as well.

``I wouldn't want to choose to pit one side of the city against the other,'' he said.

Ridley-Thomas in 1991 persuaded 15 city department directors - including then personnel director Faye Washington - to agree to set up city satellite offices in the center.

But the facility burned down during the 1992 riots before the city departments could set up shop and the building did not reopen for business until April 8.

``It puts job applications and a center for testing in South Los Angeles because there is no such center for the residents of that part of the city,'' Ridley-Thomas said. ``It is not for a specific council district, but is designed for the residents in three or four districts.''

Ridley-Thomas said the Constituent Services Center could be copied in other areas of the city, including the Valley.

Dan Rosenfeld, assistant general manager of the Department of General Services, said more Constituent Services Centers including a new City Hall building in Van Nuys have been proposed, which could mean a Personnel Department satellite for the Valley in the future.

The Constituent Services Center in South Central is a 15,000-square-foot building that houses Ridley-Thomas' district office and city divisions including the departments of aging, building and safety, and housing.

The city leases the facility for $175,000 a year from 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, a nonprofit social service organization.