Hahn Names Director of Economic Recovery

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn on Tuesday named a director of economic recovery to implement a broad plan to lift the troubled local economy in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

The plan, crafted over the last few weeks by a panel of business, labor and community leaders, calls for boosting the economy by accelerating public works projects and launching a marketing campaign to bolster the devastated travel and tourism sector.

Hahn named former development executive Joy Chen to carry out the recommendations, some of which require City Council approval.

“This is a picture of an economy in trouble, and we can’t minimize that,” Hahn said at a City Hall news conference. “But I cannot accept that we will have prolonged pessimism. We are going to move forward.”

The Hahn-appointed Economic Impact Task Force, chaired by attorney George Kieffer and assisted by economists from the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, made a series of recommendations, including:

* Fast-tracking construction of more than four dozen facilities--including police stations, sewer lines, parking structures and libraries--for which $1.2 billion in funding has been approved or is available. The panel also urged the city to push Los Angeles Unified School District and community colleges to go ahead with several billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects. The combined projects could create 11,000 jobs and provide subcontracting and procurement opportunities to small businesses, the report said.

* Creating a Business and Worker Impact Response Team in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development to better coordinate relief efforts for businesses and those who lose jobs.

* Providing relief to airport concessionaires, hard hit by the travel downturn, and reinstating the Van Nuys air show as a morale booster.

* Reversing a Riordan administration policy to forgo federal Airport Improvement Project grants, which could channel as much as $50 million annually to the airport and enable a one-time $30-million infusion for the Sepulveda Boulevard Taxiway, the report said.

* Promoting local and regional tourism through a “Rediscover L.A.” marketing campaign.

The recommendations--and the appointment of Chen, a former project manager for Catellus Development Corp., to implement them from within the mayor’s office--place a rare premium on coordination among city departments and within the region.

Hahn has advocated consolidating all economic development functions in one city department, but those plans have not advanced and he has yet to name a deputy mayor for economic development.

Chen, who served as the project manager to the 18-member task force, will step in to help coordinate recovery efforts with the county and state.

“This city has long gone on its own and thought it was too big for the rest of the region,” Kieffer said.

Chen also is expected to bring much-needed coordination to the city itself.

It is not yet clear how much city funding will be necessary to implement the recommendations, which could be presented as early as Friday to the City Council. But some programs, including the “Rediscover L.A.” marketing effort, will need city money. Measures involving city airports would require approval of the city Airport Commission.

This comes at a time when city agencies have been asked to cut spending by 10% to cope with a projected budget shortfall that could reach $156 million this fiscal year because of the slowdown.

As part of the task force work, Milken Institute economists outlined two possible scenarios for the next 12 months. One predicted that 76,000 jobs would be lost in Los Angeles County, and the other said those losses could reach 111,000. One scenario predicted unemployment of 7.5% and $19 billion in personal income lost because of decreased payroll, and the other forecast 8.1% unemployment and $23 billion in personal income losses.

The job losses--primarily in the travel and tourism, aircraft production and advertising industries--pale in comparison to the county’s 4.1 million-strong job base, but nevertheless will take a heavy toll, as much of the brunt will be borne by low-income workers such as those in travel and tourism, Kieffer said.

The task force included labor proponents such as the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and union officials representing hotel and restaurant and city workers. Corporate executives also were included, along with local business advocates and small-and minority-business organizations.

Carol E. Schatz, head of downtown’s business-backed Central City Assn. and a task force member, said that many panel members came from different backgrounds and perspectives, but that they came together for this mission.

“We needed to stimulate the economy, we needed to promote L.A., and we needed to provide relief to people who had been laid off or displaced,” Schatz said. Among the more controversial recommendations were those that affect Los Angeles World Airports. Officials from that city agency recently canceled the Van Nuys air show scheduled for next June out of security concerns and to save $1.2 million. But the task force strongly recommends it be reinstated, and Hahn said Tuesday that “we can’t afford not to.”

Officials at the airport agency, which has lost millions of dollars since Sept. 11, said they continue to have financial and security concerns about holding the show. The issue of federal grants for the airport also has been controversial. The Riordan administration sought to transfer funds from the airport to pay for city services.

But the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration fought the city’s efforts, and as long as the policy was in effect, the city was ineligible for federal grants.

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Times staff writers Jennifer Oldham and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.