Wilson’s Deputy Chief of Staff Gets Top Job

Gov. Pete Wilson named his first new chief of staff in nearly 30 years Friday, promoting deputy chief George Dunn to fill the shoes of the governor’s longtime confidant and office lieutenant, Bob White.

White, who started as Wilson’s chief of staff in the state Assembly in 1968, announced earlier this week that he will step down in late April to pursue a business career or other opportunities outside of state government.

With Dunn’s selection, Wilson sought the least amount of change in his office by choosing a person who is already known in the Capitol and well versed on issues in Wilson’s upcoming agenda.

“I have called on him time and time again to be my lead person on some of the thorniest issues touching this state,” Wilson said at a news conference Friday announcing the change. “George will continue with this office’s tradition of an active chief of staff fully engaged in all operations of government. We have many roads to travel during these critical two years [remaining] of my administration.”

Dunn is a five-year veteran of the governor’s office who came to the Wilson administration in 1992 from Arco.

There, from 1982 to 1991, he managed the company’s relations with state and local governments. His duties also included corporate public relations in five Western states.

In Sacramento, Dunn served as a Cabinet secretary overseeing all 12 California state agencies. Most recently, Dunn was the liaison between the governor and the Legislature.

That may prove to be his most critical training.

Dunn steps into the job at a difficult time because Wilson will be forced from office by term limits in two years. The governor faces a hostile, Democrat-controlled Legislature while planning an ambitious agenda to improve his sagging popularity.

“By the time we turn out the lights in this corner office, I fully expect to have taken bold new steps to revolutionize our schools, replace welfare with work and to have ensured that California is positioned to prosper and succeed in the 21st century,” Wilson said at the news conference Friday.

The job will be difficult, however, because legislative Democrats have already blasted the governor’s plan for overhauling welfare, and they have quarreled with many of his plans to help business and improve the economy.

Finally, as a lame duck, Wilson faces the continuing prospect of losing key staff members to attractive jobs in the private sector. White was the fourth member of the governor’s inner circle to leave the office this year.

Insiders say the legislative challenge this year already appeared difficult before White and others left the governor’s staff. Now, as one observer put it, Wilson goes in “with the B team.”

Dunn, however, was welcomed by Democrats to his new job, which pays $115,068 a year. Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said: “He is a bright, skillful and knowledgeable person. It’s a good choice.”

Dunn is 47 and single. Born in El Centro, he grew up in San Diego and graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Two years later, he received a master’s degree in government from Claremont.

He also was a senior research fellow at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government from 1977 to 1980.