Contract Issue Thrusts Mayor’s Aide Into an Unwelcome Spotlight
By AMANDA BRONSTAD
Staff Reporter
Troy Edwards doesn’t fit the bill of a political powerbroker. He doesn’t instinctively glad-hand. He doesn’t smile on cue. He cuts conversations short. In fact, some of those who work with him insist that the 37-year-old Loyola Marymount graduate would hardly be noticed in a crowd.
As one City Hall insider described him: “Most people would not look at him if they met him at a cocktail party. They would have talked for 30 seconds and drifted away.”
But in this case, looks can deceive. Edwards happens to be the deputy mayor responsible for airports and ports and at ground zero amid the ongoing inquiries by local officials into Mayor James Hahn’s fund-raising activities and how they might be connected with the way contracts are doled out at Los Angeles International Airport.
As if to underscore the point, Edwards testified last
month before a Los Angeles County grand jury as part of a widening investigation by the District Attorney’s office. The probe began in earnest after City Attorney Laura Chick, in completing an audit of Los Angeles World Airports, the body overseeing LAX, expressed concern about the potential for a “pay to play” environment. The inquiry is believed to include the possible connection between fund raising by airport commissioners and the awarding of contracts.
“I’m just here to answer questions,” Edwards told the Daily News of Los Angeles before going into the hearing room. “I have no information. I don’t know what will be asked.”
Beyond any possible involvement in the contracting controversy, Edwards has played a leading role as one of the chief lobbyists for Mayor James Hahn’s proposed $9 billion overhaul of LAX. Edwards featured prominently last fall in pushing the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. to support Hahn’s LAX modernization plan. (The LAEDC’s 100-person board eventually signed off on a study that was critical of the proposal.)
“A repeated message we got was that if we didn’t go along with the plan now, we can’t be at the table to change it later,” Viggo Butler, an airport consultant and chief author of the report, told the Business Journal last November.
As deputy mayor, Edwards is ostensibly charged with conveying Hahn’s goals and objectives to airport and harbor staff, as well as to the commissioners. But in the internecine world of L.A. politics, such job responsibilities can get complicated; Hahn, for example, appoints airport and port commissioners (with considerable input from Edwards, according to many insiders). Edwards is not supposed to override decisions made at the various departments, but critics say he has gotten too involved in day-to-day operations.
“If the mayor says to Troy, ‘Mr. X is concerned he get a fair shake on this contract,’ that may be all the mayor says to Troy,” said one city hall insider. “It’s very private and nondescript.”
‘Troy has tough job’
Several months ago, Edwards was relieved of responsibility for overseeing the Department of Water and Power in a move the mayor’s office said was part of a restructuring and not related to Edwards’ performance on the job.
Hahn himself would not comment on Edwards, instead offering a statement of support released through his press office.
“Troy Edwards is a talented person who brings to this administration many years of experience working with business and community leaders to improve the quality of life for all Californians,” the statement said. “Troy has a tough job, but has worked hard to deliver real results for the people of Los Angeles.”
Edwards would not respond to requests for interviews nor did he respond to an e-mail request to use a photo of him that was published in an article in Loyola Marymount’s alumni magazine. Shannon Murphy, a Hahn spokeswoman, said the mayor’s office did not have a bio of Edwards.
No one disputes Edwards’ role as a diligent and loyal Hahn lieutenant, who as deputy mayor routinely works 13-hour days, evenings and weekends. “He’s straightforward. He doesn’t play games,” said lobbyist Howard Sunkin, vice president of Cerrell Associates Inc. “When I’ve gone to him, on behalf of my clients, he told me straight up, ‘The mayor is not with you on this.'”
But interviews with other lobbyists, fund raisers and city officials point to a person who can be brusque and ill-at-ease with some of the finer points of the political game. Calls are often not returned and when they are, the conversations can be condescending and abrasive. “Just pass along the information this is the way it is,” is an often-heard refrain.
Predictably, most of the naysayers don’t want to be quoted by name. One called him weak on interpersonal skills and said he was “an unimpressive person.” Another was more circumspect: “Many people have not seen his ability to convey the proper messages and keep peace among the parties.”
Edwards made his early mark in fund raising during his days at LMU, where he helped boost his fraternity’s efforts to feed the hungry or run an orphanage in Mexico. This caught the attention of members at other fraternities, who asked him to assist their fund-raising efforts.
“He was a creative, imaginative leader,” said Fernando Moreno, director of the school’s campus ministry. “He had an idea, and people gravitated to the idea. He was able to sell the idea.”
Calderon campaign
Edwards’ career path in the years right after he graduated from LMU in 1988 is unclear. But in 1992, he landed at political consultant and fund-raising firm Charlotte Dobbs & Co. It was there that he was assigned to lead the fund raising operations of state Sen. Charles Calderon’s primary campaign for attorney general.
Calderon wound up finishing third but the campaign ended badly on two other fronts. According to a 1999 LA Weekly article, firm founder Charlotte Dobbs sued Calderon for breach of contract, claiming he owed $83,000 for services. Calderon, the article said, responded by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to the Weekly, the suit was settled and the bankruptcy not pursued. (Calderon, now a lawyer at Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott LLP, could not be reached; Dobbs declined comment.)
Edwards hardly suffered from his ties to Calderon’s poor finish. In 2000, he played a role in organizing the fund-raising side of Hahn’s successful mayoral campaign, and in the process caught the future mayor’s eye. Shortly after Hahn took over in July 2001, Edwards was one of a handful of young comers brought onto his team.
Within months of becoming deputy mayor, Edwards became one of a select group of key advisors to Hahn. Unlike former Mayor Richard Riordan, who relied heavily on advisors from the business community, Hahn has sought the counsel of a few staff members, including Edwards, and a few City Council members.
Edwards, said Michael Collins, executive vice president of LA Inc., the Convention and Visitors Bureau, has wielded his power effectively.
It was Edwards, he said, who stepped in last June when the organization was at risk of losing a $6 million LAWA contract after Hahn slashed the city’s contribution to its budget. “We would not have been able to support it with the loss of our city funding,” Collins said. “He was able to translate the issues that are preoccupying us into language that is understood and appreciated in the mayor’s office.”
For Edwards, whose career was built generating cash for campaigns, heightened security at the ports and airports thrust him into a crash course in the complex operations of those departments.
“Troy recognized that he was not an expert in some of these areas, and worked incredibly hard to get up to speed,” said Jonathan Kevles, deputy administrator of the Harbor Regional Area of L.A.’s Community Redevelopment Agency, who was deputy mayor of economic development until last August. “To his credit, he never tried or pretended to know more than he did.”
Still, with developments at LAWA routinely making news, Edwards’ role as intermediary from the mayor’s office is likely to attract more scrutiny. “He’s under a lot of pressure because his responsibilities are controversial,” said Doug Dowie, general manager of public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard’s L.A. office and himself considered one of the city’s major power brokers. “The airport is an enormous undertaking with the master plan.”
