Mayor Holds 1st Managers Meeting

In his first meeting with the city’s department heads, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told them Monday to look for fat in their budgets and to sign an ethics pledge.

Villaraigosa held the closed-door meeting to introduce himself to what he calls his management team. In a news conference afterward, he said he would bring the department heads together for quarterly meetings -- a new idea for City Hall.

The mayor, who was sworn in July 1, said the regular meetings would spur coordination within the enormous bureaucracy, which includes about 40 separate departments.

Villaraigosa asked the managers to help him identify wasted money. He said previously that he would cut the budget next year and expressed concern after City Administrative Officer Bill Fujioka warned that city spending could outpace revenue by $942 million over the next four years.

“I said that it’s very important in my mind that we do everything we can to give the taxpayers of the city the best bang for their buck,” Villaraigosa said.

“We are going to be working together to become a more fiscally responsible and prudent city,” he added.

Since his inauguration, Villaraigosa has named a handful of city commissioners but still has much more to do to shape his administration. On Monday, he would not say which, if any, department heads he planned to replace, although he said he has “formed some ideas” about some.

During the campaign, Villaraigosa sharply criticized the administration of Mayor James K. Hahn for perceived ethical lapses. On Monday, in addition to the ethics pledge, he demanded that department heads “report if someone uses my name to somehow move [a project] through the system.”

Spokeswoman Janelle Erickson said that the mayor was referring to special treatment that some donors to Hahn’s campaign allegedly received at City Hall.

Police Chief William J. Bratton -- perhaps the best-known manager -- described the meeting as a part of Villaraigosa’s “opening salvo” as mayor.

“He has clearly shown he intends to be a mayor who’s there; he’s not going to want to just hear about things,” Bratton said. “He wants to see them, smell them, feel them.”