Mayor’s Key Aide Known for Ruffling Feathers

Almost from the day in July 1993 that real estate attorney Michael Keeley moved with his boss into the mayor’s suite at Los Angeles City Hall, he has churned a mighty rough wake.

Part of that could be expected--inevitable fallout from his steady emergence as the leading foot soldier in business-oriented Mayor Richard Riordan’s crusade to reshape a city government almost as sprawling as Los Angeles itself.

But Keeley’s impatient, often abrasive style as the mayor’s chief operating officer, and his determination to win on every point, make enemies for him and the mayor “where they could just as easily have a friend,” said one member of the 15-member City Council, which holds most of the real power.

Even his boss acknowledged the duality of that quality: “Mike’s strength is that he is a perfectionist,” Riordan said. “It’s also his weakness. . . . I give him a fatherly talk from time to time about being a little more flexible.”

Yet until Friday, most of the complaints about Keeley were about style, not integrity.

That morning, just as the mayor and Keeley were about to take the annual budget proposal to council chambers, City Atty. James K. Hahn touched off a political earthquake.

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In a letter delivered simultaneously to the mayor, the council and the Ethics Commission among others, Hahn accused Keeley of giving documents involving Department of Water and Power litigation to attorneys on the opposing side; he demanded Keeley’s resignation and threatened to stop working with the mayor’s office if Keeley doesn’t comply.

The copies included a fax memo from Keeley noting that Hahn had told him not to release the documents and suggesting that the private attorneys cover his tracks.

The council rushed into a closed session, emerging with a demand for Keeley to explain himself--in private--during Tuesday’s council meeting. Councilman Mike Feuer also promised to discuss the matter at today’s Rules and Elections Committee meeting.

It is as if the 42-year-old Keeley, a man who traded a law office for one of City Hall’s rabbit-warren cubicles, suddenly has gone from being the man behind the issue to an issue himself.

“This looks like classic hubris”--the kind of pride that brought down the noble protagonists of Greek tragedy, according to Xandra Kayden, a UCLA public policy instructor and a frequent writer about city politics.

“And it is the very thing that many people suspect is the fatal flaw of this administration--thinking that what is most important is the right decision. But, in the public’s business, what you most want is a fair and open process,” she said.

Even Keeley’s toughest critics describe him as extraordinarily brilliant and able, a central, perhaps essential, player for Riordan; if they seem too eager to point out his failures, they also acknowledge his successes.

“He’s definitely the guy on the ground. . . . I can’t think of a single major initiative [from the mayor’s office] that he hasn’t been involved in,” said Councilwoman Rita Walters, who frequently has upbraided Keeley for, among other things, “his attitude that nobody else has any brains.”

Riordan said the University of Michigan law school graduate “sometimes ruffled feathers, including mine.”

City Hall watchers say Keeley has been a far greater asset than liability to Riordan, a view the mayor wholeheartedly shares. “He’s been the driving force” behind numerous key administration initiatives, Riordan said. It was that same drive, intelligence and skill that prompted him to hire Keeley at his downtown law firm some 15 years ago.

Riordan has angrily denounced Friday’s move as a “cheap trick” on the part of Hahn, whose office has been criticized by the Riordan administration, and who is being challenged for reelection next year by Riordan confidante Ted Stein.

Nonetheless, Riordan said he takes the allegations seriously and has promised an internal investigation.

Keeley’s supporters say they are sure he has done nothing to hurt the city and cautioned against a rush to judgment. A lawyer friend said Keeley had told her that he was only trying to save the city further legal costs by persuading the opposing side, represented by the firm of Morrison & Foerster, that it had no hope of winning.

Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez said Keeley will cooperate with the investigations. He had no immediate comment.

“Mike takes this issue very seriously, especially because it affects his credibility. He recognizes this issue may be the result of an error in judgment on his part, and he welcomes the opportunity to discuss this matter with council members to get the facts out, ultimately, to move on” with his City Hall duties, Rodriguez said Saturday.

But even if Keeley is found to have committed no legal or ethical breach, the damage still may be severe, Kayden said.

It will be hard to erase the impression that Keeley took it upon himself to make a decision that rightfully belonged to Hahn, said Kayden, who added that she has found Keeley to be accessible and frank about his views. “Will this be viewed as an isolated incident, an honest mistake, or will it be seen as a crack in the wall that provides a look into how things really are in this administration?” Kayden asked.

Friends who often describe Keeley as caring, compassionate and funny also acknowledge that he can come across as cold, arrogant and humorless.

“He’s deeply committed to his work and to the city,” said Riordan Chief of Staff Robin Kramer, who shares top billing with Keeley.

“He’s brilliant, challenging, thorough, creative and judgmental,” a package of attributes that “does not always win him friends,” said Kramer, a political and legislative veteran who has earned a reputation for strong people skills. She describes her relationship with Keeley as good, despite their “very different” styles.

“We have extremely friendly, long negotiations and arguments,” said Kramer, adding “it would be irresponsible” for either of them to swallow the other’s views uncritically.

“Mike’s been good for the city. He’s very sharp, very innovative. He’s brought in some good things that someone on the inside might not be able to see,” said longtime council President John Ferraro.

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Michael Francis Keeley, the eldest of eight children born to Midwestern Irish and Canadian Catholic parents, graduated with honors from Notre Dame University and did a two-year Peace Corps stint in the Philippines before distinguishing himself in law school.

He once told Frontiers, a gay magazine, that he moved here after law school so he could live more openly as a gay man. He eventually bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and worked on issues important in the gay community.

He met attorney Bill Wardlaw, Riordan’s longtime friend and political guru, as a summer intern at O’Melveny & Meyers. Wardlaw later helped Riordan recruit Keeley.

Keeley represented several nonprofit organizations working to build affordable housing--a natural extension of a lifelong interest in community services, Keeley once told an interviewer.

When Keeley offered to join the new mayor’s administration--taking a huge pay cut to do so--Riordan eagerly accepted.

At City Hall, Keeley has taken charge of fashioning and selling city budgets that reflect Riordan’s vision of a “right-sized” City Hall. The budgets include eliminating “unnecessary” jobs to make budget room for a massive Police Department expansion and squeezing productivity improvements out of departments the mayor considers fat and inefficient.

Some of Keeley’s early efforts, including plans to turn over many city services to private contractors, and a complicated proposal to raise money by selling the historic Central Library--bombed. He joked that his early, admittedly clumsy dealings with the City Council made him a student learning by the “bloody nose method” of instruction.

He may need a refresher course, according to people he continues to bump heads with.

Julie Butcher, a leader of the city’s blue-collar workers’ union, said Keeley never gives up, no matter how small the issue. In a recent battle over her union’s successful efforts to persuade the council that its workers could do a better job than a private contractor in maintaining the new police Recruit Training Center in Westchester, Keeley “went ballistic” and challenged the numbers.

Even after the council sided with the union, and the mayor let their decision become law without his signature, Keeley wasn’t about to back down. He included private contracting for the recruit center in the mayor’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.