Newly Named Deputy L.A. Mayor Quits Post

In the latest shake-up in Mayor Tom Bradley’s Administration, Diane Muniz Pasillas has withdrawn her acceptance of a deputy mayor’s job less than three weeks after taking it, city officials said Friday.

Named to fill the vacancy was Ed Avila, president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.

Pasillas was tabbed only last month to replace Deputy Mayor Grace Davis, who had served as Bradley’s chief liaison with Los Angeles’ Latino community. Pasillas’ appointment was part of a shake-up in which Bradley’s chief deputy, Mike Gage, resigned and was replaced by the mayor’s legal counsel, Mark Fabiani.

Pasillas was to assume her new job in February. But Bradley aides said she called the mayor Thursday from Japan, where she is traveling with her fiance, to tell him she had decided against taking the post. She cited personal and health reasons for her decision.

“During the last few days it has become increasingly clear to me that the job of deputy mayor would . . . separate me even more from my children than did my prior job,” Pasillas said in a statement released by the mayor’s office.

She said she will remain a member of the city’s Airport Commission, to which she was appointed by Bradley earlier this year.

Pasillas, who also is executive director of the Latin Business Assn., added in her statement that her physician advised her the new job could cause additional stress and hamper recovery from a neck injury. “Based upon these factors, I withdraw my acceptance of the mayor’s . . . offer to serve as his deputy.”

In a statement released by his office, Bradley said: “I respect and fully understand Diane’s personal decision to make her family the No. 1 priority in her life.”

Pasillas is engaged to marry lawyer and businessman Dan Garcia, a Bradley friend and adviser and former president of the city’s Planning Commission.

Leaders of the Latino community expressed surprise at Pasillas’ decision.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Yvonne Maris, executive secretary of the Latin Business Assn., said Friday. “She was very excited and honored” by her appointment to the deputy mayor’s job.

“I’m pretty shocked,” said Gloria Alvarez, executive director of operations for the Mexican-American Grocers Assn. “I thought she would have been a perfect person in that position.”

Avila, appointed to the Board of Public Works by Bradley in 1984, is to assume the deputy mayor’s job in March. His duties are to include serving as the mayor’s liaison to the public works agency.

Times staff writers John H. Lee and Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.