Kevles Expected To Be Appointed Business Deputy
By HOWARD FINE
Staff Reporter
After a six-month wait, L.A. Mayor James Hahn is close to announcing Jonathan Kevles as his selection for the administration’s top business post, knowledgeable sources told the Business Journal.
Kevles, currently head of the mayor’s Business Team, appears to have has won the appointment to the economic development deputy post over a short list of contenders, including former film industry executive Kate Bartolo and Valley Economic Development Center president Roberto Barragan. Also on the list was Joy Chen, who is serving a six-month stint in Hahn’s office trying to implement the recommendations of a task force report to spur the local economy.
As of late last week, Hahn administration officials refused to comment on the Kevles promotion. Sources said that the administration was looking for the best time to make the announcement and they did not rule out the possibility of a last-minute change. But word of Hahn’s likely choice spread through the city’s business community last week, and the reaction was mixed.
Many who have dealt with Kevles on the Business Team praised his accessibility and his ability to move projects through the city’s often labyrinthine bureaucracy.
“This is a man who understands economic development and who is very good at moving things through the bureaucracy,” said Rusty Hammer, the recently hired president and chief executive of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce.
But others privately called it a missed opportunity to select someone more experienced and prominent in the business world. They expect that the Hahn administration will have to work harder to close big deals with investors or major corporations.
“If some business executive gets a call from the mayor’s economic czar and has to ask, ‘Who is that guy?’ then you have already defeated the purpose of a dealmaker,” said one City Hall source who has also served in the business world.
Former consultant
Kevles, 33, was a relative unknown when Hahn tapped him to head the Business Team in August 2001. He served several years as an organizational consultant to various city departments, including the Community Redevelopment Agency, the Department of Water & Power and the City Attorney’s office, led by Hahn.
He has had some private sector experience, working as an economic development consultant for Kosmont Partners in the early 1990s. He received a Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.
Like Kevles, the economic development deputy during Richard Riordan’s administration, Rocky Delgadillo, started out as an unknown. But he grew into the job and then used it as a platform for his successful run last year for city attorney.
But there’s a big difference: Riordan himself came from the investment banking world and already had a circle of friends and contacts. Hahn, with his career in government service, lacks such contacts and is generally considered uncomfortable in dealing with businesspeople. That’s why some were hoping for a person with heavyweight business clout to be appointed as his economic development czar.
“There’s no question it’s going to take a little more effort now to get someone like a (Walt Disney Co. chief executive) Michael Eisner to understand that the mayor is the one making the call,” said Tom Decker, a retired Bank of America executive who last year was interim president and chief executive of the L.A. Area Chamber.
But others point to the obvious difficulty in attracting such a person to the post on a government salary.
“If someone is out in the private sector cutting those multimillion dollar deals, what makes you think they are going to go work as a deputy mayor for presumably under $100,000 a year?” asked one business leader. “To get that level of experience, you probably have to pick someone who is retired, and then you have to wonder what energy level they are going to bring with the job.”
More important, they say, is having a coherent economic development strategy so that when Kevles does call top executives, they know that he is speaking with the full power of the mayor’s office behind him.
“The L.A. economy is now far too complex for one man to be the dealmaker, no matter how big a name,” said local economic development consultant Larry Kosmont, who was once Kevles’ boss. “It’s all about smaller, faster companies and you need a full retinue of well-placed people with private sector experience.”
Besides attracting business and investment to the city, one of the first challenges Kevles will face is a call from the Valley Industry and Commerce Association to scrap the city’s business tax.
“We’re looking for some leadership and action on this front, not reaction,” said VICA president and CEO Bonnie Herman.
