As Davis Gallivants, the Nitty-Gritty of Staffing Is Ignored

Welcome back, governor. The work’s been piling up. The real work.

That two-week junket overseas no doubt was exhilarating, if exhausting. Governors deserve vacations like everyone else. And if they want to invite along some moneybags campaign contributors, that’s their privilege, even if it does look unseemly.

But don’t try to kid anybody that foreign policy was conducted. Or trade negotiations. That’s solely the role of the federal government. It’s also not as if this were the first meet-and-greet mission abroad by a California governor. George Deukmejian did five; Pete Wilson four--but only after their administrations were up and running.

The state now has nine foreign trade offices and is planning to add six more next year. If all these outposts are so important--which is questionable--then they should be fully staffed. There are directorship vacancies in five present offices, including Mexico City and Tokyo.

Which is a roundabout way of bringing us back to the real work at hand: cranking up this not-so-new administration.

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One year after he was elected, Gov. Gray Davis still has filled only half the roughly 1,000 appointive jobs in state agencies and departments, and on boards and commissions.

Davis appointed his entire Cabinet before Inauguration Day. But below that level, too often, he paradoxically has been both inattentive and a non-delegating micro-manager--an unusual style that can gum up any operation.

Of the 42 department directors, the Democratic governor has named just 22. Six other directors are Republican holdovers from the Wilson administration. There are 14 vacancies.

Republicans preside, for example, over the Department of Mental Health and the Office of Environmental Health Hazards. There are directorship vacancies at the departments of Motor Vehicles, Boating and Waterways and the State Lottery. Plus, there are scores of GOP holdovers or vacancies at lower levels.

One insider says that some of this is deliberate: Wilson holdovers were reappointed or left in limbo at sensitive posts to protect Davis’ backside in case the places blew up. “Where there was potential for a major explosion,” the source says, “the attitude was, ‘Let’s not touch it with a 10-foot pole. Let’s leave Pete’s people there.’ ”

Blame them.

One good example was the Department of Corrections, where Davis reappointed Director Cal Terhune, a respected bureaucrat whom Wilson had elevated to clean up prison scandals.

But the main factors in Davis’ procrastination are the vivid memory of his old boss, Jerry Brown, and the low priority he places on filling these jobs.

Brown’s governorship was defined by some early poor appointments. Indeed, Davis already has been embarrassed by two selections: He had to remove his first Veterans Affairs secretary, James Ramos, after veterans complained he was heavy-handed. And Davis now reportedly is disappointed in his Youth Authority director, Gregorio S. Zermeno, after reports of guard brutality.

Then there’s the “so what?” factor.

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“No harm, no foul,” says Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante. “Nothing about this is causing one problem for any taxpayer.”

So what if Cabinet members gripe because they don’t have complete teams, or boards can’t meet for lack of members?

“Voters elected this guy to fix the education system,” Bustamante says. “To get a budget passed on time, to control guns . . . not to deal with boating and waterways, or get somebody to sit on a waste board to oversee the number of Q-Tips tossed into a garbage dump. This is about competing priorities.”

Fine. Then delegate the hiring job to someone else.

Davis does find time, however, to spend a quarter of his waking hours--by one insider’s estimate--raising political money.

By comparison, the last time there was a party switch in the governor’s office--16 years ago when Deukmejian replaced Brown--the new governor immediately cleaned house. “We wanted a fresh start with all new people,” recalls Deukmejian’s chief of staff, Steve Merksamer.

Says former Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh: “I’ve got a whole bunch of friends still holding onto their jobs--very content and very surprised.”

Meanwhile, there are demoralized, talented Democrats all over town who months ago were encouraged to apply for jobs that still haven’t been filled. Once, they were excited about joining the new administration. Now, they really don’t care.

If these jobs have such a low priority, governor, maybe they should be eliminated--starting with some overseas outposts.