Valplaza

0

Deborah La Franchi

Born: Aug. 2, 1969 (29)

Assistant Deputy Mayor for Economic Development

Deborah La Franchi isn’t just the highest-ranking twentysomething in Mayor Richard Riordan’s youth-oriented administration, she’s also sitting in one of the administration’s most pressure-packed positions.

As one of the mayor’s two point people on economic policy, La Franchi is on the front lines in an effort to revamp the city’s archaic business tax code.

“She’s been put in a very high-profile spot,” said L.A. real estate and business consultant Larry Kosmont. “Selling tax reform is very complex and she has been able to navigate through it. Because of her negotiating skills, she has given (her boss, Deputy Mayor) Rocky Delgadillo the opportunity to score some key points.”

La Franchi says her workload varies according to where her projects happen to be on the political agenda. With tax reform about to be voted on by the L.A. City Council, recent workweeks have been unrelenting. (Even when not officially working, she says she still thinks and even dreams about tax reform.)

La Franchi is no newcomer to politics. A UCLA political science graduate who went on to get a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, La Franchi got a taste of the Washington scene while working as an intern for then-Vice President Dan Quayle. But the moderate Republican got turned off by the rising tide of religious conservatism sweeping the party. She left Quayle’s staff and quit the Republican Party. She is now a registered Independent.

After a brief stint at the Brookings Institution, La Franchi came back to Los Angeles and spent 18 months working for the city’s Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton. Then she read about how Riordan’s Business Team attracted a company to Los Angeles.

“I read that article and it hit me: That’s exactly what I wanted to do, to use government to make things better at the local level,” La Franchi said.

In 1996, she joined the Business Team as the East Valley representative and was involved in negotiations to redevelop Whiteman Air Field and the old General Motors auto plant. She then moved to Riordan’s economic policy staff, where for the last two years she has helped spearhead the effort to reform the business tax code.

Such City Hall machinations have taken time away from her other passion: travel. As part of UCLA’s Junior Year Abroad program, La Franchi studied at Budapest University.

“I decided to do some exploring while I was there, so I started backpacking my way around the countryside,” she said. “But when I was through, instead of coming back like my parents wanted, I just kept on going.”

La Franchi spent much of the next several years backpacking through Europe, Africa and Asia, venturing through China just two years after the Tiananmen Square massacre. “I have found that it is easier to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro than it is to change some minor bureaucratic rule here in L.A.,” La Franchi quipped.

Howard Fine

No posts to display