NEWS ANALYSIS : Civic Leaders Suggest Why the Valley Was Spared : Communities: Officials say improved relations with the Police Department and fewer desperately poor people helped the area escape the fate of the central city.

As flames engulfed South Los Angeles, community leaders and residents in the San Fernando Valley feared there would be a similar explosion here.

As of Saturday, it had not happened. Although some gunfire and looting occurred in the Valley, especially on Thursday night, it did not approach the rampages that occurred in South L.A., Koreatown, Long Beach and other areas south of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Community leaders attributed the relative calm to a variety of factors, including improved relations with police and relatively fewer desperately poor black people. One speculated that the Valley was spared the fate of the central city because violence erupted there first, drawing looters from throughout the region.

As word of the Rodney G. King case verdicts spread Wednesday afternoon in Pacoima and Van Nuys, church leaders and community activists immediately made appeals for calm. Volunteers rode on police patrols, urging youngsters to go home. On Thursday, they visited schools to urge that protests of the verdicts be done nonviolently.

Minority communities in the East Valley have experienced many of the same economic and social strains as South-Central: poverty and lack of jobs, competition with other minority groups, gang warfare and tensions with police.

But some believe the black community’s smaller size and compactness aided the appeals for calm.

“The advantage here is it’s a little bit closer community” and not so geographically dispersed, said Linda K. Jones, Valley chapter chairwoman for the Black American Political Assn. of California.

There are about 50,000 black and 460,000 Latino residents of the Valley, according to the 1990 U.S. census. Nearly half the black and half of these Latino residents live in the Pacoima, Lake View Terrace, Van Nuys, Mission Hills and Panorama City areas.

The East Valley is more Latino than black, and more Latinos than blacks have taken part in looting and vandalism here, according to police and community leaders.

Minor Jiminez, a senior lead officer with the Police Department’s Foothill Division, said most gang members have stayed home.

“I believe . . . family and neighborhood are taken into account and they think with their heart before they act,” he said.

Other observers cited growing police credibility since a community-based policing program was adopted in 1991 after the furor over King’s beating. Police officials in the Valley assigned 31 community liaison officers to work full time with neighborhood representatives. A similar effort was later adopted in several parts of Los Angeles.

Among the most visible of these programs is in the Foothill Division, which includes Pacoima, Arleta and Lake View Terrace. It is where the four officers charged in the King case were assigned.

“Since the Rodney King situation, you’ve had new approaches in working with the community out here,” said Le Roy Chase Jr., executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley in Pacoima. “The squeaky wheel was here, so we were getting the oil.”

Police officials developed working relationships with leaders of a wide range of community organizations, including homeowner associations and the Black Student Union at Valley College. Those leaders in turn reached all parts of the community, young and old, said Fred Taylor, a black community activist.

Also, leaders knew that they could always pick up the phone and place a call to police officials, he said. The reverse was also true. Taylor said Foothill Division Capt. Tim McBride called him three times on Wednesday asking for advice.

Officers also made direct contact with the public, dropping by businesses and visiting residents.

Some benefits of the approach were in evidence when political, police and community leaders met in Pacoima with residents as evening fell Thursday--the worst day--to discuss ways to forestall violence.

Two black men hurried over to shake McBride’s hand after he briefed the audience and prepared to head out to the streets.

“Good luck. Keep the faith,” one man told him.

“Hang tough,” the other said.

The police, Chase said, “began building these bridges and the result here--fingers crossed, knock on wood--we don’t have the type of situations you have in the inner city.”

A quick police response when violence began escalating Thursday night also kept the rioting from getting out of control, one police official said. Capt. Patrick McKinley, assistant commanding officer for Valley operations, said police early on arrested some of the most active looters.

Others suggested that for all their problems, minority neighborhoods in the East Valley are not gripped by the level of despair that exists in South-Central.

“What happened out there could happen here,” said Barbara Perkins, president of the Valley section of the National Council of Negro Women. But she added, “Perhaps, unlike Los Angeles, people are seeing there’s hope.”

Irene Tovar, a Latino community activist in the East Valley, said South Los Angeles is more economically depressed.

“There is poverty here, and there are people in great need, but not to the degree as in South-Central,” she said.

“I think there’s still hope in the Valley. They still feel there may be something that can be done to resolve the problems.”

Times staff writer Hugo Martin contributed to this story.