2 Women Added to L.A. Planning Director Candidates

Two women, including the former planning director of the City of New York, have moved up among the leading contenders in the competition for Los Angeles’ top planning post.

After a reshuffling, a field of six finalists for the $86,000-to-$96,000-a-year director of planning job has increased to eight, Phil Henning, assistant general manager of the city Personnel Department, said Wednesday.

The change came after one of the candidates, Efraim Garcia, planning director of Houston, withdrew from the competition. Under provisions of the city Charter, those with the highest scores among candidates who did not make the finalist list automatically become eligible. In this case, three candidates move up after being scored equally by screening panels of professional planners, architects, academics from the planning field and homeowners’ representatives.

Those added to the finalist list are:

- Alanne Baerson, 46, who resigned earlier this year as planning director of New York City, where she had worked in the planning department for 17 years and was its top executive for five years. Baerson could not be reached for comment. Henning said Baerson’s departure from her previous position appeared amicable.

- Patricia Nemeth, 40, community development director of the City of Carson. She has served in that position three years and formerly was Riverside County’s planning director.

- Mark Pisano, 43, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a quasi-governmental organization that studies regional issues. Pisano said Wednesday, however, that he is undecided whether to continue seeking the planning director’s job. A former director of water planning at the Environmental Protection Agency, Pisano has been the head of SCAG for 10 years.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who will select a successor to retiring Planning Director Calvin Hamilton, has been interviewing the finalists. An appointment is not expected for at least two weeks, a Bradley spokesman said.

Selection of the new planning director comes at a time when the struggle between pro-development and slow-growth forces is intensifying, as reflected in an initiative campaign to cut in half the size of buildings allowed on much of the city’s commercial property.

The previously announced finalists are Kenneth Topping, 50, deputy administrator of development services for San Bernardino County; Richard Counts, 45, planning director of Phoenix; Kei Uyeda, 53, Los Angeles’ deputy director of planning; Robert Lurcott, 47, planning director of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Douglas Ford, 40, general manager of Los Angeles’ Community Development Department.