POLITICAL PULSE—Might Mayor’s MIA Advisor Be Bound for Washington?

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Where did Noelia go?

For much of this year, former mayoral press secretary Noelia Rodriguez had one of the highest-profile gigs in town: chief executive of L.A. Convention 2000, the private-sector host committee responsible for raising the money to put on the Democratic National Convention.

Rodriguez, who had been L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan’s deputy mayor for communications, took the helm of the committee at a time of crisis last February, when it was having trouble raising funds. She managed to turn the organization around, but hit a big bump in the road when the committee was forced to go hat-in-hand to the L.A. City Council for an additional $4 million.

Nonetheless, she persevered, got the additional funds and helped mount what turned out to be a largely successful convention.

But, instead of basking in the glory, Rodriguez slipped from sight. At the huge media party extravaganza just before the convention’s opening gavel, Rodriguez said she intended to take a vacation and then mull over her options. Many thought she would go back to the Mayor’s office, where she was one of Riordan’s most trusted advisers. Others predicted a bright future for the Democrat in Washington if Gore took the White House.

But unbeknownst to most Angelenos, Rodriguez’s convention-related work was far from complete after the balloon drop. In fact, after her two-week vacation, she spent most of September and October at the host committee’s downtown financial district offices, closing out the books.

Rodriguez paid out millions of dollars worth of bills and submitted a massive evaluation report on the host committee’s experiences to the Democratic National Committee, to be passed on to the next Democratic Convention host committee. And she had to prepare for an audit from the Federal Election Commission, standard operating procedure for any host committee.

As this work wound down in the last few weeks, Rodriguez turned her attention back to the Mayor’s office, helping to prepare her host committee communications chief Ben Austin to assume her old role as Riordan’s deputy mayor for communications. Austin, who had been working on the campaign of vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman, started his new duties after Election Day.

So what’s Rodriguez up to now? She wouldn’t return calls for comment last week due to a family emergency. Officially, she’s still consulting for Riordan, who in a recent press release touted her for “leading our City to greatness as CEO of LA Convention 2000.” But according to Austin, she was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the presidential election to see whether she should send her resume to Washington.

Career Changes

If L.A. Unified School District Superintendent Roy Romer has his way, corporate executives and mid-level managers could soon find themselves working for the LAUSD.

Last month, Romer met up with Pacific Bell’s Los Angeles region president Lora Watts at a Partners in Education conference. She happened to mention that several Pac Bell managers were being offered early-retirement packages as part of a corporate move to slim down management ranks and beef up customer service personnel.

Romer mentioned that he was looking for highly qualified employees, both as teachers and administrators.

“We need to attract the best available talent out there to help us with our No. 1 priority, educating students and preparing them to enter the workplace,” Romer said.

So, earlier this month, Romer, through Watts at Pacific Bell, sent an e-mail to all Pac Bell managers in the Los Angeles region, many of whom are eligible for the early-retirement package. In the e-mail, Romer said there are openings at the district for talented and dedicated individuals.

According to Romer’s office, this is the first time any such pitch has been made to employees of a corporation. And, initially at least, it generated quite a bit of interest.

“In the first 48 hours, we had 33 employees call wanting to find out more about this opportunity,” Watts said.

Mediator Mystery

Assemblyman Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, has shed some light on one of the lingering mysteries surrounding the recent MTA strike: his role as mediator. On Sept. 23, Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg appointed Wesson as “an impartial fact-finder,” or mediator, in the already-lengthy impasse. But, after an initial flurry of media appearances that weekend, Wesson dropped from sight; as the weeks dragged on, he was forgotten as the principals staked out their positions publicly.

Contrast that with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who came in a month later and successfully mediated a settlement within a few days.

Wesson said that he spent his first two days just trying to identify and understand the stumbling blocks in the negotiations. And then, he said, he committed a crucial mistake: He chose to negotiate with MTA players at the negotiating table rather than MTA board members themselves.

“I should have picked up the phone and called (County Supervisor) Don Knabe or (County Supervisor) Zev Yaroslavsky, instead of dealing with the MTA’s negotiating team,” he said. “They were the ones who actually were making the decisions.”

Once he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere, he decided to “take a back seat,” as he put it.

But some outside observers suggest another reason for Wesson’s lack of success: Before he won election to the Assembly in 1998, he was chief of staff for County Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, who is now chair of the MTA. His appointment as mediator reportedly incensed union negotiators, who did not see him as an impartial player.

Staff reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected].

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