New L.A. redevelopment board holds stronger ties to big business.

The newly appointed Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners possess close ties to big business, marking a radical departure from the prior CRA commission, which was dominated by social activists.

For more than a decade, the CRA -- the agency in charge of urban renewal -- was led by vocal labor leader Jim Wood, who heads the AFL-CIO in L.A. County.

As various sources told the Business Journal, Wood ran the CRA commission with an "iron fist" and was adamant that CRA-related projects should use union workers.

Wood was joined on the former commission by high-profile social activists, such as Pastor Thomas Kilgore Jr. and Monica Lozano. Kilgore is a religious and civil rights leader who helped organize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous march on Washington, D.C. in 1963 and helped unionize tobacco workers in North Carolina in the 1940s. Lozano is editor of the Spanish-language daily newspaper La Opinion.

The person responsible for reconstituting the CRA board was Mayor Richard Riordan, who is responsible for appointing all L.A. city commissioners, subject to City Council approval. Riordan retained only one commissioner from the previous CRA board: Christine Essel, vice president of planning and development for Paramount Pictures Corp.

The seven-member commission is now led by Stanley Hirsh, an apparel manufacturer and owner of a number of downtown Los Angeles properties, including the Cooper Building in the garment district.

Hirsh, at one time a key political supporter of Mayor Tom Bradley, is active in philanthropic activities, such as fundraising for the United Jewish Fund and Jewish refugees from Ethiopia.

"We need to help the city regain its prominence as an international, safe and clean city," the Studio City resident said of the new commission's mission.

The CRA, established in 1948 to cure blight through encouraging economic development and affordable housing construction, has a staff of 300 and gets its budget through tax increment. About half of this year's $422 million CRA budget is earmarked for long-term debt service.

Over the years, the CRA has gotten plenty of heat from a wide spectrum of interests -- big business, labor, social activists, homeowners, and others. Big business has accused the CRA of pushing a union agenda and social activists have heavily criticized the agency for focusing almost exclusively on the Central Business District in downtown L.A. and catering to big business interests to the exclusion of L.A.'s poor population.

The commissioners, who serve on a strictly volunteer basis, are in charge of determining which projects are undertaken by the CRA.

Joining Essel and Hirsh on the newly reconstituted board are five other women and one other man, most of whom are considered accomplished business people and community activists.

Most of those interviewed by the Business Journal said it was too early to evaluate the current commission, but most praised the new commissioners as a highly competent and diverse group.

Here are short descriptions of the new CRA commissioners:

* Frank Cardenas, a public policy attorney, is director of governmental affairs for the World Cup Organizing Committee, which is coordinating the soccer tournament slated to come to the United States in 1994. He also served as counsel on the Christopher Commission, which investigated the L.A. Police Department following the Rodney King beating.

And he was the principal author of a charter amendment passed by voters in 1992 that provides for transferring money from the Los Angeles International Airport to the city's general fund under special circumstances.

He lives in the East L.A. neighborhood of El Sereno and said his top priority is focusing on economic development and job creation.

* Bobbi Fiedler served as a U.S. Representative between 1981 and 1987, after serving one term on the Los Angeles Board of Education. Currently, she is a member of the board of LA.-based United Education and Software, which runs trade schools and markets software to school administrators.

She worked on the budget committee in Congress and now heads the CRA's new Management and Budget Oversight Committee, which will draft the budget and monitor the internal workings of the CRA. She lives in Northridge.

* Cynthia McClain-Hill, a vice president in the L.A. office of First Boston Corp., a New York-based investment bank, has a lot of experience in public finance. She is a member of the California Fair Political Practices Commission and publisher of a news quarterly aimed at young African-Americans.

She heads the CRA's new Economic Development Committee, and said she wants to focus on neglected areas of the city, such as South Central L.A., East L.A. and parts of the San Fernando Valley.

She lives in downtown L.A. on Bunker Hill -- the site of major redevelopment by the CRA.

* Peggy Moore is vice president and branch manager of the downtown L.A. branch of Home Savings of America. She is also an active board member of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau and a number of civic organizations, such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Salvation Army. She also lives on Bunker Hill.

* Shelby Jean Kaplan Sloan, a nationally acclaimed expert on affordable housing, is chairwoman of Tricap Management Inc., a Century City-based corporation she formed that provides property management services to government-assisted multi-family housing projects. She is also president and chairwoman of Tricap Corp., which serves as a general partner in partnerships overseeing low- and moderate-income multi-family housing projects.

She will serve as chairwoman of the CRA's Housing Committee and said helping the homeless will be one of her top priorities. She lives in Century City.

The commission is scheduled to place its first stamp on policy during the budget deliberations this fall. Although the CRA's next fiscal year does not begin until July 1, the commissioners are expecting to start debating the 1994-1995 budget early because it then must go to the City Council for final approval.