Riordan Picks Insider for Chief of Staff

Terming it his “most important appointment,” Los Angeles Mayor-elect Richard Riordan on Friday named William R. McCarley, the City Council’s top policy analyst and a 28-year City Hall veteran, as his chief of staff.

“Bill is the perfect choice . . . a person who is respected by the City Council, who will make certain the mayor and the City Council work as one team in turning this city around,” Riordan said at a news conference.

A 53-year-old career bureaucrat, McCarley brings to Riordan’s team a wealth of City Hall relationships and technical expertise crucial to a neophyte elected official with an ambitious agenda.

Describing himself as “sort of a translator” for the new mayor, McCarley stressed his history of working with council members, as well as his support for a variety of Riordan’s proposals to streamline city government.

“The cornerstone of Mr. Riordan’s tenure will be . . . to work together in a partnership mode (on) public safety, jobs and efficient delivery of public services,” McCarley said. “I don’t see this as changing jobs. I’m on the same team. I’m just going to play a different position.”

The announcement drew praise at City Hall.

“Clearly, as far as the inside man is concerned, (Riordan) could not have (done) better,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, a budget expert who has worked closely with McCarley on major financial programs. “The main asset of McCarley will be to keep the new mayor . . . from making mistakes.”

Council President John Ferraro, a key Riordan ally who discussed several candidates for the job with the mayor-elect, said the choice “was a great idea. . . . Nobody knows City Hall better than Bill McCarley.”

Privately, some City Hall critics of Riordan questioned how a bureaucrat so closely associated with the old guard could spearhead the reorganization and cost-cutting programs Riordan has promised. “He’s part of the old boys network; the old-line general managers who have been around for years,” said one official. “To change city government, you have to change the ways these guys operate these departments . . . and there’s only one way to do it: brute force.”

Riordan said: “We had long discussions on . . . his ability to be tough. We checked him out. He has a reputation (that) he can be very firm and very strong.”

Riordan transition advisers stressed that the appointment of McCarley, who is white and lives outside the city in Hacienda Heights, is not necessarily indicative of things to come.

Advisers promise that the mayor-elect’s staff and city commission appointees will contain many new faces and will be diverse.

Chiefly, McCarley’s appointment highlights a growing realization in the Riordan camp that a blend of old hands and fresh thinkers is needed if the mayor-elect is to hit the ground running.

In some respects, McCarley has been an agent of change in his current job. His admirers say he made the legislative analyst’s office more professional, attracting bright, young staffers. He gave crucial support to Yaroslavsky’s effort to bring the massive, semi-autonomous Community Redevelopment Agency under tight control.

Last year, McCarley produced a highly critical analysis of the city’s scattered economic development efforts. He also called for a major consolidation and refocusing of its business development programs.

About 15 years ago, he helped author one of the first studies calling for elimination of the full-time, politically appointed public works board. Riordan proposed eliminating this board during his campaign.

The only hitch could be McCarley’s salary, which now is $149,000--about 50% higher than the top salary permitted in the mayor’s office.

Saying it is only fair that McCarley maintain his salary, Riordan said he has requested legislation to permit McCarley to be paid that amount. The mayor-elect said he still plans to cut the overall budget of his staff 20%, and noted that he has made a start by accepting a salary of $1 per year.

Yaroslavsky said he expects the council to go along with the salary increase, as long as it does not increase mayoral spending.

A native Californian, McCarley was raised in the Pomona area, received a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics at Cal Poly Pomona. While in the Army, he served as a member of the presidential honor guard in Washington.

He began at City Hall as a junior analyst in public works and was chosen to head the legislative analyst’s office eight years ago.

As such, McCarley has been a researcher and adviser for all council members, has been involved in most major policy debates and has played a key role in developing and analyzing annual budgets and major city contracts.

In other transition-related developments:

* More than $50,000 in contributions to a special city transition fund has been collected. Donations are from a variety of firms doing business in the city, including $10,000 from Public Storage; $2,000 from TELACU, a large Latino development business, and $10,000 from Aecom Technology, an engineering firm.

* Sources said attorney Gil Ray, executive director of the Christopher Commission and a transition team adviser, has withdrawn from consideration for the city Police Commission. That opens the way for attorney Stan Sanders, an unsuccessful mayoral candidate and a Riordan adviser, to be the mayor’s point person on the commission.

* Transition officials are seriously considering creating a new high-level position in the mayor’s office--possibly a deputy mayor or special adviser--to oversee a comprehensive effort to reorganize city government and improve the delivery of services. William Ouchi, a professor of management at UCLA and an expert on successful business management strategies, is a leading candidate. Ouchi has been an adviser to Riordan, who complains that many City Hall functions are disjointed and wasteful.

Profile: William R. McCarley

* Born: Dec. 19, 1939

* Residence: Hacienda Heights

* Education: Cal Poly Pomona, bachelor of science degree. Graduate studies in finance and public administration at USC.

* Career highlights: Chief legislative analyst, city of Los Angeles, since 1984. Has worked in a variety of capacities for the city for 27 years.

* Interests: Photography.

* Family: Married, one child.

* Quote: “I intend to work very directly, very closely with every council member. . . . That’s one of the things I bring to this job.”