Reconstruction Meeting Turns Fiery : Inner city: Session featuring insurance representatives is halted by protests. Angry minority contractors storm out and close down nearby demolition site over lack of black workers.

A meeting called by California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi to address complaints that black-owned firms are being shut out of rebuilding projects in South Los Angeles was disrupted Friday when Brotherhood Crusade head Danny Bakewell led a group of minority contractors out of the room to close down a nearby job site that had no black workers.

The walkout occurred after Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) told contractors they should not be afraid “to show your anger” over being shut out of work, and after a black contractor angrily accused Garamendi of staging a “dog and pony show” instead of forcing insurance companies and property owners to funnel more construction contract money into the hands of minority firms.

“The insurance industry has violated us in every fashion a community can be violated,” from refusing to provide insurance coverage in inner cities to failing to invest in minority communities, Waters said.

Waters defended the Brotherhood Crusade’s campaign to shut down construction projects that do not employ black workers. “If we can’t work, you can’t work,” said Waters, pointing at insurance industry officials.

The outburst forced Garamendi to abruptly curtail planned presentations by industry panelists, many of whom had been reluctant to attend the gathering for fear it would become a forum for bullying and political grandstanding.

“I was surprised by the anger,” said Richard Donegan, regional underwriting manager for Allstate Insurance Co., which had threatened to boycott Friday’s meeting but ultimately attended. “I don’t think the meeting was constructive in any way.

The meeting at the black-owned Golden State Mutual Life Insurance headquarters at Western Avenue and Adams Street brought together representatives from about half a dozen insurance companies, as well as adjusters who make damage estimates, contractors’ associations, bonding agencies and about 100 local contractors. The audience was more than 90% black but included a few Latino and Asian-American contractors and businessmen.

Garamendi arranged the gathering after complaints from South Los Angeles community leaders and minority contractors that reconstruction work is being funneled by insurance companies and property owners to outsiders rather than to residents of South Los Angeles, where it is estimated that 50% of the men are unemployed.

Representatives of Farmers Insurance Co., the largest commercial insurer in the riot area, with about $70 million in outstanding claims, did not attend the meeting. And officials from insurance firms that attended said they were not authorized to make any commitments to minority contractors on behalf of their companies.

Allstate’s Donegan acknowledged that like many firms his has been slow to establish a relationship with minority contractors. After the session, he met privately with several black business owners and said he would consider them for Allstate’s list of recommended contractors.

Allstate said it has a “quality assurance program” that includes nine contractors, two of them minority-owned firms. But Donegan downplayed the significance of the list, contending that most policyholders choose their own contractors.

However, Elena Stern, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Insurance, said “there are qualified, bonded, talented and able contractors in the community that was damaged and . . . they ought to be given the opportunity to participate in the rebuilding process.”

She said a list of minority contractors will be sent to insurance companies and Garamendi will urge them to use firms from the list.

Nevertheless, many participants were angry that the meeting failed to produce a written commitment from Garamendi or the insurance industry to increase minority contractors’ role in construction work arising from the riots. They noted that demolition work is already under way at many of the structures damaged in the rioting and that few African-American firms have gotten significant contracts.

“The want to put us in second position and hire us (only) as subcontractors,” said Drexel Johnson, who heads his own demolition and equipment rental firm. “But we want the real dollars.”

As Johnson spoke outside the meeting room, Waters joined Bakewell and about 30 others and stopped demolition work at a fire-damaged market and coin laundry at 1985 W. Adams St.

The group blocked the path of a bulldozer, forcing a Spanish-speaking machine operator off the machine, and told a Korean-American supervisor that his crew must leave the job site.

“This is nothing personal against you,” Bakewell told the supervisor, Simon Jung, who said he worked for ACE Engineering. “But this can’t go on in our community. This job is closed until they hire” African-American workers.

Jung said ACE Engineering was only a demolition subcontractor that got the work because it was the low bidder for the job. The company referred inquiries about the dispute to the general contractor, Unique Construction. Officials of Unique did not return several telephone calls seeking comment.

The impromptu protest underscored the social and economic complexities of rebuilding Los Angeles from the devastation, which left at least 45 people dead and 5,000 unemployed.

In the name of furthering minority hiring, the protesters had closed down a job site that included about five Korean-American and Latino workers. The men had been hired by Unique Construction, whose headquarters are located in riot-scarred Koreatown--less than two miles from the West Adams Street job site.

But Al Williams, head of the newly formed United Minority Contractors group, said he had no qualms about the action.

“All of this demolition work out here is just about gone,” Williams said. “We came here to sit down with the insurance companies and resolve this issue today. . . . All we got was a seminar” of hot air.