Howe Confirmed as Planning Director; Salary Under Fire

The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday unanimously approved Con Howe, former second-in-command of the New York City Planning Department, to take over as head of the Planning Department in Los Angeles.

But although the approval of Howe was long expected, there was some heated discussion regarding his $145,000-a-year salary. The council eventually approved the salary but three council members voted against the amount.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said he does not oppose Howe, just the amount of his salary. Howe is being paid about $25,000 more than any previous planning director, and his salary exceeds that of the city engineer, “which is just as complex a job and has a bigger staff,” Yaroslavsky said.

But other council members said that anyone who can successfully head the long-beleaguered Planning Department, in a city known for poor planning, deserves a hefty salary. Howe called the job “the greatest challenge in my profession.”

An audit of the department last summer concluded that “planning in Los Angeles is at a crisis level.” It is a highly, politicized department, the audit declared, influenced by public officials--including City Council members--who often are pressured by powerful developers and affluent homeowner groups.

While homeowner groups have expressed reservations about Howe, partly because he helped run a planning department in one of the nation’s most crowded cities, he told the council members: “I learned that all cities are unique. I learned that the experience in one city can’t just be plunked down in another.”

Councilman Hal Bernson said Howe needs “to be strong enough” to withstand lobbying by council members pushing pet projects.

“And if (the project) is not in the city’s interest he has to be able to tell the council members that right up front,” Bernson said.

While council members might say in public they want a strong planning director, in private they have demonstrated a completely different attitude. Auditors who conducted the study last summer said city planners frequently described the department’s mission as follows: “The goal/mission of our division is to do pet projects for the City Council and keep them happy.”

Councilman Michael Woo, who has a graduate degree in urban planning, asked Howe what he called “an impossible question.” He asked him how will he balance “what is best for an individual council district with what is best for the overall city.”

Howe said that “even in a diverse city” there are ways to seek citywide solutions to some problems, instead of ruling on issues, case by case. Every district has “parallel interests,” he said, including preservation of neighborhood character, transportation issues and air quality problems.

In a recent interview, Howe said he will not be swayed by parochial political concerns.

Howe told the council that one of his priorities is “making good on the vast number of recommendations” in last summer’s audit. And he intends to delineate important issues, not just to the council, “but to the public, so professional judgments are not made behind closed doors.”

Council members expressed support for Howe, but those who were not happy with his salary criticized how the figure was determined. Yaroslavsky complained that Mayor Tom Bradley decided upon the salary without consulting council members.

An official with the city’s Personnel Department told the City Council that the head of the Planning Department in San Diego makes $108,000 a year, and the head of the department in San Francisco $110,000 a year.

“At a time when city employees are facing salary freezes, layoffs and salary cuts, this salary seems incongruous,” said Yaroslavsky, chairman of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee. “My opposition to the salary is not a reflection on Mr. Howe; it’s a reflection on the city’s rapidly vanishing reserve fund.”