CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : What a Mayor Learns in 100 Days : We need to rework the process and structure of government, and encourage full citizen participation.

I was elected to chart a course toward better government: more responsive, more efficient, in touch with the needs of our city’s residents. I knew all along that I faced a tough challenge. But in my first 100 days I have learned several key things:

* There are many powerful advocates for the status quo. Under the current City Charter I can achieve meaningful change only if the public is willing to continue to participate actively in making tough choices over the next few years.

* We must set our own priorities and control timing very carefully. Urgent problems, often driven by outside agendas, can overwhelm our ability to achieve more important structural change.

* We must seek to implement an integrated family of core initiatives. I cannot allow parochial interests to gut or cherry-pick these necessary changes.

I have already presented several key initiatives, and I will introduce many more over the course of the next few months. In general these initiatives will focus on three key themes.

First, we must achieve a dramatic change in attitude. This is already starting to happen. I have already mentioned the most important problem here: Residents in every neighborhood must continue to participate actively, instead of passively waiting for life to get better. If you agree with my initiatives, call or write your councilperson to say so. If you disagree, tell me what you would do to address our problems, instead of shouting “ Nyet .” I have been hired to lead, but under the current City Charter my power to achieve meaningful change lies largely with you. I will also be working hard to create confidence in my leadership style and ability and to engender trust throughout our diverse communities.

Second, the process of city management is largely dysfunctional. I am already working to correct the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and special interests. In addition, City Hall can learn a great deal from the dramatic restructuring in the private sector over the last 10 years. For example, the City Hall bureaucracy is plagued by a stilted, command-and-control methodology that failed in the private sector. To implement some of the new private-sector models, we must emphasize product over process, through clear goals that transcend individual or departmental bureaucratic dogma.

By introducing the flat management structures used in the private sector, we can dramatically improve our responsiveness and encourage initiative, the key to any organization’s ability to achieve meaningful change.

There are many other processes that need dramatic improvement. The city treats the purchase of a $12 calculator as a capital expense, subject to mind-boggling checks and balances that are out of step with any rational process. Overly cumbersome competitive bid requirements and other purchasing restrictions driven by extraneous policies make it virtually impossible to purchase small computers or office supplies at the prices widely advertised to the public. Personnel decisions are driven by outmoded Civil Service rules that place high premiums on the results of written examinations that fail to measure critical variables like people skills, management style and innovation.

Finally, and perhaps most ambitiously, the structure of city government must be reworked. We can no longer afford duplicative systems that double overhead in the name of autonomy and control. We should seriously examine the consolidation of services provided by both the city and the county, such as animal regulation, library systems, law-enforcement training and record keeping. We will explore the feasibility of operating our world-class Los Angeles port with our neighbor and competitor, the port of Long Beach.

Within the city, we will revisit the mission statements of each department, to seek to focus our efforts on our core responsibilities and only those other services that we can provide most efficiently. We should give our employees greater ability to grow, both through better training and through mobility of pensions and benefits. Finally, we should look at our City Charter, to bring it into step with modern times.

I have learned a lot in 100 days. Now the tough work begins. I ask for your help and support.