Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday shuffled the deck of city commissioners, placing former Paramount Studios executive Christine Essel on the Airport Commission and naming Andrea Alarcon to the Board of Taxicab Commissioners.
Essel, 58, formerly senior vice president of government and community affairs for Paramount, was most recently the chair of the California Film Commission and begins serving as first vice president of the FilmLA Board. She was first named to the Community Redevelopment Agency Board by the late Tom Bradley in 1992 and served as the board chairwoman in 2005.
Alarcon, 29, is the daughter of L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon. Villaraigosa named her to the city’s transportation commission two years ago. At the time, Richard Alarcon was a state Senator. She has also held posts as special assistant to the state attorney general and as a hate crimes specialist for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Villaraigosa has named Grace You, executive director of the Korean American Coalition in Los Angeles to fill Alarcon’s seat on the transportation panel.