New Director of Housing Council to Draw on Past : Discrimination fighter: Former Urban League executive Mary Miller is the fourth head of the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council in three years.

The scrutiny Mary Miller endured 10 years ago as the first black person to move into a Los Feliz condominium building was disquieting. It seemed to her that every move she made, every word she spoke, was examined by residents made uneasy by her presence.

Today, she said, her neighbors acknowledge their past wariness. But Miller, the fourth executive director of the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council in three years, said they now value her as a neighbor. She said that turnaround--from reluctance to acceptance--is what comes of challenging preconceptions.

The other residents of her complex “didn’t escape from the building . . . and sell their condos,” said Miller, 61, who assumed her new position two weeks ago.

“Once they are in close proximity to . . . people other than their own ethnic group, they say, ‘Hey, that wasn’t so bad,’ ” said Miller, who worked for the Los Angeles regional office of the Urban League, the influential civil rights organization, for 23 years.

Miller said she expects to draw on that experience as head of the troubled nonprofit fair housing council, which uses government grants to uncover and battle housing discrimination against minorities as well as families with young children.

She was the only candidate seriously considered during a six-month search by the council board of directors. Dozens of others who applied for the job, which pays between $27,000 and $33,000, lacked the proper credentials, board members said.

Miller’s move to the Los Feliz condominium was not the first time she had been a pioneer. Her family was one of the first black families to live in the nearly all-white northern Chicago suburb of Glencoe. She was the first black woman to attend the National College of Education in Evanston, Ill.

Her professional experience and education will serve her well. As the assistant director of the Los Angeles regional office of the Urban League, she was responsible for education, training and management development for local affiliates of the organization. She holds a master’s degree in management from the University of Redlands.

Enthusiastic board members, who voted unanimously to hire her, say they are confident that she will end a turbulent period in the council’s 30-year history.

The council fired its last executive director, who had been in the job seven months, for incompetence last March. The Fair Housing Congress of Southern California, the umbrella organization that distributes city and county grants to the six housing councils in Los Angeles County, put the council on probation in August, 1988, when the council fired its previous executive director.

That director was fired after only five months on the job for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark. The fair housing congress became worried that the rapid turnover was causing a drop-off in housing discrimination investigations. Before that, the job had been vacant nine months after the departure of a director who had held the job less than a year.

The congress was concerned about overly ambitious fund-raising goals and rumors of a power struggle on the council’s board of directors.

Marcella Brown, executive director of the congress, said the Valley council will remain on probation indefinitely. Brown said she was encouraged by Miller’s extensive background.

Said Holly Azzari, president of the Valley council’s board of directors, “She has everything we wanted and more.” Azzari said Miller’s long involvement in civil rights issues, extensive experience as a fund-raiser, budget expertise and management background make her highly qualified for the position.

Rafer Johnson, the well-known Olympic athlete who was on the search committee for the executive director’s position, said the council’s previous directors lacked the necessary qualifications.

“What has happened in the past was . . . we hired some people that just couldn’t do the job,” Johnson said. “The fair housing history in the San Fernando Valley has been exemplary, and we haven’t had it in our executive directors in recent years to continue that excellence. I think we have found it in Mary Miller.”

Miller said she knows about the council’s problems but is optimistic about its future. “I’m going to approach this . . . in a positive vein because there is so much work that has to be done,” she said.