City Offers Retraining for Quake Business Victims : Recovery: Incentives will steer owners of damaged enterprises toward industries expected to flourish in the future.

To rebuild a local economy shaken by the Northridge quake, Los Angeles city officials said Monday they plan to help retrain owners and workers of some quake-damaged businesses to enter new “growth industries.”

In addition, the city plans to conduct surveys of thousands of quake-damaged business owners during the next three months, looking for ways to help them recover, according to Mary Leslie, Mayor Richard Riordan’s deputy for economic development.

Riordan’s latest efforts to help the business recovery were made public Monday, about three months after City Controller Rick Tuttle accused the mayor of failing to play a strong enough leadership role in rebuilding damaged businesses.

Riordan aides rejected the charges, saying the mayor had initiated several recovery programs that had simply not been heavily publicized.

The key to the latest city effort will be the release next week of a report by economist David Friedman analyzing the city’s business climate and identifying those industries that are expected to flourish in the near future.

Leslie said city officials will study the report and use federal funds and local incentives to steer the owners of quake-damaged businesses toward the growth industries. To aid in this effort, the city will tap an $80-million federal grant to help retrain workers, she said.

The city wants to avoid going to the trouble of rejuvenating businesses that eventually fail anyway due to natural and foreseeable changes in the economy, Leslie said. “We don’t want to come across a bunch of empty lots in the next two years,” she said.

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Another element of the city’s recovery effort disclosed Monday is a hot line for business owners, 1-(800)-CITY-AID, which provides bilingual information on assistance centers and business loan programs.

The surveys of damaged businesses are expected to be completed by Jan. 17, the one-year anniversary of the earthquake.

One survey will poll the nearly 20,000 businesses that reported physical and financial quake damage but were rejected for SBA loans. Another survey will attempt to reach the 88,000 or so business owners in the city who took out SBA loan papers but failed to return the applications.