MAYOR GARCETTI BEGINS SECOND ANNUAL DEPARTMENT HEAD REVIEW

The City Charter assigns the Mayor the role of the city’s CEO, and when he took office, Mayor Garcetti took the unprecedented step of requiring every city department head to reapply for his or her job.

“As Mayor and the city’s CEO, I want to make sure that we hold every city department head accountable and measure their performance to save taxpayer dollars and deliver better services. I want Los Angeles to be the best run city in America,” Mayor Garcetti said.

Throughout the past year, the Mayor and his staff have worked with the General Managers and their departments to set goals and to establish metrics for measuring and reporting departmental performance. Each department head will be expected to incorporate the key points from their review into their management, goals, and departmental culture, including four city-wide priority outcomes: making the City more livable, sustainable, prosperous, safe, and well-run. Key areas of focus this year include:

• Integration of COMPSTAT-style management within departments
• Alignment of departments to performance-based budgeting
• Compliance with Mayor Garcetti’s open data executive directive to make departments more transparent and accountable

Part of his back to basics agenda to make City Hall run more effectively and efficiently, Mayor Garcetti has appointed 10 new general managers since taking office in 2013.

• Chief Ralph Terrazas, Los Angeles Fire Department
• Rushmore Cervantes, Interim General Manager of the Housing and Community Investment Department (HCIDLA)
• Holly Wolcott, Interim City Clerk
• Seleta Reynolds, General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT)
• Danielle Brazell, General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA)
• Gene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles
• Jan Perry, General Manager of the Economic and Workforce Development Department
• Marcie Edwards, General Manager of the Department of Water and Power
• Raymond Chan, General Manager of the Department of Building and Safety
• Stephen Simon, Executive Director of Department on Disability