More Than Half on Transition Team Don’t Live in L.A.

Richard Riordan’s transition team members may love L.A., but you’d never know it by their ZIP codes.

More than half of the Los Angeles mayor-elect’s 16-member transition inner circle lives outside the city.

Of those who do call Los Angeles home, none lives south of the Santa Monica Freeway.

That may not be too surprising, because Riordan did poorly in South Los Angeles.

But even the San Fernando Valley--the source of his strongest support--rates no more representation on the panel than Pasadena, an examination of voter registration and property records shows.

The chairman of the transition effort, lawyer William Wardlaw, lives in Pasadena with his wife, Kim, another lawyer who is a member of the team’s senior staff.

Senior staff member Charles G. Bakaly III, who is serving as co-counsel to the transition, also lives in Pasadena.

Even the small foothill community of Sierra Madre has more representation than South-Central Los Angeles.

Bakaly’s co-counsel, Gary Mendoza, an attorney for Richard Riordan’s law firm, Riordan & McKinzie, lives in Sierra Madre.

Transition team member Pamela G. Chin, a former Riordan & McKinzie attorney who works for Arco, lives in Manhattan Beach.

UCLA management professor William G. Ouchi makes his home in Santa Monica.

Film producer Dawn Steel lives in Beverly Hills.

McDonald’s franchise holder Frank M. Sanchez lists an address in unincorporated East Los Angeles.

And Jadine Neilsen, who served as Riordan’s campaign manager and is executive director of the transition effort, makes her permanent home in San Francisco.

Riordan is being closely watched to see whether he keeps his campaign pledge to make his Administration reflect the ethnic and geographic diversity of Los Angeles.

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represents a portion of South-Central Los Angeles, said that not having someone from the area in the mayor-elect’s inner circle will certainly result in “some missed opportunities or some missed insights.”

But Ridley-Thomas said the more important test of Riordan’s diversity pledge will come later, when he makes about 200 appointments to the commissions that oversee city departments. “Such a pattern would not be acceptable in terms of commission appointments,” the councilman said. “I’m fully prepared to assist Mr. Riordan in avoiding what could be called a very costly mistake.”

Riordan’s transition chief, Wardlaw, repeated Tuesday what he has been saying all along: that geographic diversity was not a factor in selecting members of the transition effort.

However, one member of the transition team, Carol Rowen, has said she believes she was chosen in part because she comes from the Valley.

In a written statement to The Times on Tuesday, Wardlaw said:

“While not all of the transition team lives in the city of Los Angeles, all are deeply involved in the work and concerns of the city and have a stake in what takes place here. And they all share the common goal of making Los Angeles more livable for all of its citizens and a more productive place in which to do business.

“We have striven for diversity on our transition team, but have not been so restrictive as to impose geographic requirements on top of the other criteria (ethnic diversity and expertise) needed to accomplish the tasks we face.

“In addition, all of the new city commissioners will come from the city of Los Angeles and we felt that it was beneficial not to have people selecting commissioners who also might be eligible for the positions themselves.”

Of those who live in Los Angeles, businessman and failed mayoral candidate Nick Patsaouras lives in Tarzana, as does marketing executive Rowen.

Ted Stein, president of the city Planning Commission and a senior staff member on policy issues, lives in Encino.

Gilbert T. Ray, a lawyer and colleague of Kim Wardlaw’s at the downtown law firm O’Melveny & Myers, lives in Brentwood, where Riordan also lives.

The other failed mayoral candidate on the transition team, attorney Stan Sanders, lives in the mid-city district.

Senior staffer Dan Blackburn, a correspondent for Cable News Network until he became communications director for the transition, lives in Los Feliz.

And Angie Alatorre, a public affairs consultant who is married to City Councilman Richard Alatorre, lives in Monterey Hills.