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Peter V. Ueberroth has been a Los Angeles titan ever since the 54-year-old former travel agent successfully engineered the 1984 Summer Olympic Games here. The accolades have been been piled high, with the topper being Time magazine's "Man of the Year" award bestowed in 1985 for his Olympian triumph.
And now, battered by riots and a sadsack economy, the city turns again to Ueberroth, who has been appointed head of the Rebuild L.A. task force by Mayor Tom Bradley.
Many see Ueberroth as a natural choice, a supreme organizer of human talent. But others wonder if the rush choice of Ueberroth is more PR for an economy that needs long-term growth and job creation.
UEBERROTH: SUCCESS?
By many accounts, the Olympic Games were a spectacular success, producing a cash surplus of $215 million, and much of which was due to Ueberroth's masterful management and hardball talks with sponsors.
And beyond security bills, local taxpayers were not dunned. By and large, the Olympic Games went off without a hitch--although the expected hordes of tourists did not arrive. Hotel occupancy rates during the games rose only by 6 percent, compared to other summers.
But since the Olympics, the Orange County-based Ueberroth appears to have stumbled, particularly during his tenure from 1985 to 1989 as Commissioner of Major League Baseball. During that time, Ueberroth led club owners to cut ballplayer salaries. But the owners were later found to have colluded and were forced to cough up a $280 million settlement, reportedly the largest damage award in sports history.
And others are asking if Ueberroth or the Rebuild L.A. team of lawyers knows how to make a regional economy tick--if they know much beyond the entertainment and travel industries.
"We need a goal for growth in manufacturing, and a concentrated government effort to help exporting industries," said Dan Flaming, president of the Los Angeles-based Economic Roundtable, "We need an industrial strategy, but I haven't heard people mention it. That's the way you employ large numbers of people."
BASEBALL CZAR
Ueberroth may not know his way around a factory, but he has a reputation for manufacturing authority. And in 1985, he accepted the job of Major League Baseball's commissioner, only if he got enough authority.
He got the job,...