Faced with their worst economic crisis since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, L.A. city officials have been slow to respond to the needs of businesses devastated from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Hundreds of airport workers have lost their jobs and hundreds more workers have been laid off at area hotels and related hospitality businesses throughout the city. Scores of businesses are now teetering on the edge of insolvency as their customer base has all but vanished.

There has been lots of talk about the creation of task forces and economic summits, but so far at least, little in the way of action.

Some point to a lack of focus and especially a lack of leadership from Mayor James Hahn’s administration for the tepid response. The City Council also is being blamed for not reacting more quickly.

“I don’t think we’re doing anywhere near enough,” said L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti, who chairs the council’s economic development task force. “While our arsenal may be somewhat limited, there are more things we can do in the short run, like granting tax breaks and permit relief to the affected industries.”

The only concrete step the city has taken so far is one mandated by state law: setting up job assistance programs to help laid off workers find new jobs. That program kicks in after an employer announces layoffs of 50 or more people, which in this case happened within the first week following the Sept. 11 attacks. City officials have been working to match some of these workers with job openings in other public agencies, like the Los Angeles Unified School District. And they are putting on two job fairs; one held this past weekend and the other on Nov. 1.

But no other steps have been implemented. Instead, numerous ideas have been floating around for weeks now, both inside and outside City Hall. These include speeding up public works projects to granting additional tax breaks to businesses.

Task forces formed

After a slow start in the immediate aftermath of the crisis Hahn was stranded in Washington for three days after the attacks the mayor has begun to focus on the economic crisis at the airport and in the tourism and hospitality industries.

But instead of issuing executive orders or getting special ordinances passed through the City Council to aid businesses immediately, Hahn has assembled two task forces. One of the committees is addressing the concerns of airport businesses and the other is looking at what can be done for the broader business community. He also has signed on to co-host an economic summit next month at the Staples Center.

In a speech last week marking his first 100 days in office, Hahn said the goal of the task forces and the Nov. 1 summit is to come up with strategies to deal with the economic crisis.

“I want to hear from businesses what we need to do to keep our economy moving,” Hahn said. “In the current environment, we need to find out what are the things the city needs to do to help small businesses grow.”

Reacting to claims that Hahn is reacting slowly to business needs since the attacks, Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said Mayor Hahn has focused first on LAX so that the city can regain the economic benefits of the airport.

“He has been holding workshops at LAX. We’ve been pushing for federal aid for airport workers. And we’ve also established this Economic Impact Task Force to come back with recommendations in very short order three weeks,” Middlebrook said. “We recognize that the timeline is now and we have to move on all these fronts very swiftly. The impact was first felt at LAX and is spreading to other sectors of our economy. This is going to be a major priority of the Hahn administration from this point forward.”

Garcetti and others at City Hall note that any recommendations to come out of the summit and the task forces will take weeks, if not months, to implement, if they even get approved at all. “We can’t afford to wait that long,” Garcetti said. “Certainly by Halloween we need to have some package in place.”

But Middlebrook said some task force recommendations can be acted on quickly.

“Some recommendations that come forward will be acted upon and implemented immediately within days,” Middlebrook said.

Garcetti added that he had discussed with fellow councilmember Nick Pacheco the possibility of granting further tax breaks for businesses in the affected industries.

Others were skeptical about the city’s ability to come up with a coherent business assistance package in time to help businesses hit hard.

“There’s often little preparation and no follow-through with task forces and summits,” one City Hall insider said. “Without both the preparation and the follow-through, you’ve got a recipe for doing nothing, which in this case could prove disastrous.”

Vacancies in economic team

Part of the problem lies with the Hahn administration itself. After more than 100 days in office, the mayor has yet to name his key economic development deputy or to fully assemble his economic policy team, something that many believe is impacting his ability to respond to the current crisis.

“You can’t just deal with this on an ad-hoc basis,” said Larry Kosmont, an L.A.-based economic development consultant. “You need a coherent strategy, executed by a focused team. There is a desperate need for leadership here, for an economic czar to move things forward.”

Middlebrook said the economic development post will be filled shortly.

Any responsibilities close to the description of an economic czar have fallen to Jonathan Kevles, head of the Mayor’s Business Team, who normally focuses on putting together incentive packages for individual businesses to expand or relocate into the city.

Kevles said the business team’s main focus has been to refer financially distressed businesses to already existing programs, chiefly from federal government agencies like the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The council has been slowed down by its own problems. Torn by internal bickering over committee assignments for much of the summer prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, the council machinery has only begun to return to some semblance of normal. Yet with six new councilmembers and two posts empty, some say the body is still ill-equipped to deal with the emergency it now faces.

As a result, one councilmember said privately that the council was waiting for its cue from Hahn.