Private Sector’s Help for L.A.

* Re “Mayor’s Bent for Private Sector May Undo Him,” Opinion, March 19:

Xandra Kayden was way of the mark in her comments regarding Mayor Richard Riordan’s efforts to involve Angelenos in efforts to reform city government. Her position that the expertise of the private sector should not be utilized as a resource to solve major public problems is far from enlightened.

As one of the people who responded to the mayor’s call to take a fresh look at the city’s fiscal administration (while many others reviewed the city’s woeful technology and convoluted permitting system), I know that our task force worked closely with city staff to identify problems, some of them festering for years, and to examine the systemic possibilities for change.

We approached our task as citizens, as volunteers and as Angelenos who care about our city’s future. There were no private interests at stake, only the public good. Our work was informed and strengthened by the city employees with whom we worked. And we made our recommendations very public, in order that they would become part of the dialogue on how to make our city government more responsive. I call this effective citizen involvement--and a healthy sign for Los Angeles.

ELI BROAD

Chairman, SunAmerica

Los Angeles

* Mayor Riordan did not run for the office of mayor of Los Angeles because he needed a job. We must remember he takes only $1 a year in salary and he certainly did not need the headache of running Los Angeles. I am sure that he had no idea how badly the infrastructure of the city had deteriorated, but he must have known something was not right. So, with a sense of civic duty he ran for office, was elected (on a primarily economic platform) and has now brought a sense of economic urgency.

All Angelenos must be keenly aware that the business sector provides the “tax base” from which government derives its revenue. Money in, money out. Sounds like a business to me. The mayor is applying entrepreneurial ideas to a city government that was developing a serious case of “hardening of the arteries.”

JOHN N. ENGELS

Northridge