Legislator’s Wife Is 3rd Riordan Aide to Resign : City Hall: Janis Berman, head of governmental relations, resigns amid reports of clashes with chief of staff. Two deputy mayors have stepped down in recent weeks.

Mayor Richard Riordan suffered another staffing shake-up Wednesday when Janis Berman, the wife of a prominent Southland congressman, abruptly announced that she will leave her position as director of governmental relations.

Office sources said Berman, who is married to six-term Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), was forced out by Riordan’s chief of staff, William McCarley, with whom she has clashed frequently.

The official version of Berman’s departure--as described by her and McCarley, and in a statement by Riordan--was that she resigned voluntarily, effective Jan. 5, to pursue other interests.

Berman’s appointment in July had been seen as an important step in giving the new mayor an in-house tie to Washington. Her abrupt departure prompted some political observers to wonder about potential political fallout.

Deemed a quirky reformer by her friends and an unfocused gadfly by her City Hall critics, Berman used the $55,000-a-year position to work on an array of issues, some of them unconventional. The 47-year-old Democratic Party activist ruffled many feathers along the way and was described by one City Hall source as “the ultimate loose cannon.”

During her brief tenure, Berman, a resident of Sherman Oaks, worked to create a graffiti reduction program in the San Fernando Valley and suggested a major face-lifting for Los Angeles International Airport, including the introduction of cappuccino and health food stands, and valet parking. She also sought to improve the working conditions for City Hall garage attendants, saying she felt sorry for them whenever she pulled into the city’s dimly lit underground parking structure.

Chief of staff McCarley, Riordan’s top aide, downplayed suggestions that the office was in turmoil from the recent resignations of Berman and Deputy Mayors Jadine Nielson and Al Villalobos.

“Organizations change through time,” he said. “This organization has more visibility. Over the next few years, there will be changes. I don’t think you should read too much into that.”

Sources in the mayor’s office have complained of low morale among mayoral staffers. Several have described McCarley, a longtime City Hall insider, as a tough boss who has created ill feelings among those who are new to city government.

“It’s not that there are any plots or that I’m a terrible hatchet man,” McCarley responded in an interview. “I think if there was as much turmoil as people speculated then they would be in here to lynch me.”

Berman’s first official assignment was to consider redesigning stodgy and outmoded LAX. She composed a long list of suggestions, from playing Frank Sinatra recordings on the public address system to conducting a sort of etiquette school for airport police. Although some called the proposals charming and innovative, airport officials privately said they were naive or duplicated work they had already done.

Officials in the mayor’s office said McCarley refused to give Berman an assistant she demanded and was unenthusiastic about many of her ideas, such as her contention that City Hall garage attendants were working in unsafe conditions because of their constant exposure to car fumes.

“She felt she was free and didn’t have to have a whole lot of accountability,” one city official said.

A Berman confidante said Berman felt her creativity and innovative approach to government were unjustly thwarted by an entrenched City Hall bureaucracy. A tearful Berman said: “I don’t think my record was so bad in six months for someone who is creative and had a lot of energy.”

The press release from the mayor’s office said Berman was leaving to take a position with Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata, who is a Democratic candidate for state controller.

Perata, a former aide to Rep. Berman, said he welcomed Berman’s assistance but did not know that she was leaving the mayor’s office to assist his campaign. Later, Berman said she was not sure if she would be a paid staffer or work as a volunteer.

Times staff writer John Schwada contributed to this story.