2 Top Riordan Aides Quit to Return to Private Sector; 1 Won’t Be Replaced

Two top aides to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan resigned Thursday to return to the private sector.

In addition to Gary Mendoza, deputy mayor for economic development, who announced earlier this summer that he would leave the administration after a little more than a year, Deputy to the Mayor Steve Sugerman quit his post of communications director.

Neither Sugerman nor Mendoza has taken a new job yet. Mendoza has agreed to head the mayor’s new commission on healthy children and Sugerman, too, is likely to serve the city in a volunteer capacity.

“They gave good weight,” Riordan chief of staff Robin Kramer said of both men, noting that each has young children and wants to earn more than a government salary. “This is a methodical, dynamic way in the beginning of a second term to reach new goals.”

Replacing Mendoza, who earned about $97,000 a year, will be Rocky Delgadillo, who has been with Riordan since shortly after he became mayor in 1993, and most recently has been assistant deputy mayor, working as Mendoza’s second-in-command. Sugerman, whose annual salary was about $85,000, will not be replaced, Kramer said.

“Rocky has a great track record of creating jobs and opportunities for Angelenos,” the mayor said in a written statement. “I have great confidence in his continuing ability to make Los Angeles the place for jobs and business.”

A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University Law School, Delgadillo spent a year teaching public school in East Los Angeles before joining the Los Angeles law firm O’Melveny & Myers. After the 1992 riots, he worked at Rebuild L.A. until he joined Riordan’s administration more than three years ago.