Wilson Hopeful for Business Stimulus : Economy: Governor calls for bipartisan approach. He uses riot-recovery project as a backdrop.

Gov. Pete Wilson, speaking at the symbolic kickoff of a Los Angeles riot recovery project Thursday, said he is optimistic about prospects for an economic stimulus program that would help overcome California’s reputation as a bad place to do business.

Wilson met with legislative leaders in Sacramento on Wednesday to discuss a broad array of bills that would, among other things, reform the state workers’ compensation program, cut regulatory red tape and offer tax incentives for businesses that create jobs.

“If we are able to do everything we were talking about, we will see some legislation moving very quickly,” Wilson said during the ceremony at a Vons supermarket in Culver City marking the start of a projected $2.4-million job training program.

Wilson said there is considerable similarity between Republican and Democratic versions of the economic plan discussed in Sacramento and “the time has come to move it.”

The governor read from remarks that he balanced on a wobbly podium, looking out at a giant display of Gallo wines and flanked by paper towels and Bounce. Electronic check-stand scanners provided a background serenade of “beep, beep, beep.”

The ceremony launched a $359,000 pilot project operated by the Southern California Regional Occupational Center to train jobless people to work in Vons stores being built in riot-ravaged areas of Los Angeles.

Students introduced by Wilson and Roger Stangeland, chairman of Vons Cos., included Charlie Brown, 38, of Inglewood. His eight-year job as a truck driver disappeared when his company failed last fall. Brown then worked for the city of Inglewood under a federal job training program, but that expired after six months.

The state-Vons program has given him “a second chance--at life, really,” Brown said.

“And I hope to go real far in Vons,” Brown added. “I’d like to be a store manager one day. That’s my goal in life.”

State officials said that up to 2,000 people would be hired to work in new or rebuilt Vons markets in areas hit by last year’s riots.

Wilson said the program provides a way for the companies “to find skilled and energetic employees from the community that they are serving.”

In Sacramento on Thursday, the Legislature sent workers’ compensation reform bills to a Senate-Assembly conference committee that will attempt to draft a bipartisan compromise to reduce employer costs and improve benefits for injured workers.

In contrast to previous years, the Legislature has shown signs of putting partisanship aside on the workers’ compensation issue, under which California employers pay what are among the nation’s highest insurance premiums while disabled workers receive benefits that are among the lowest.

Wilson said he wants to cut at least $2 billion in costs from the $12-billion annual program. Last year, when no reform plan was reached, Wilson had insisted on $1 billion in savings in employers’ premiums.

“Unless we really save substantially, it won’t achieve the purpose, which is to allow store owners and other employers to be competitive with their opposite numbers in other states,” the governor said.

Times staff writer Carl Ingram also contributed to this story.