Hopefully a little flash will lead to substance.

It's been a month since L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa took office. How's he doing?

Thirty days is far too short, we know, to evaluate much of anything let alone a position as important as the mayor of such a huge city. But I'll of course make a snap judgment like many of those "talking heads" on news shows do. It seems to be the thing to do in the media these days. Just keep it alive and interesting.

The mayor's doing good, I think, so far--and I stress so far after these short thirty days. A lot can happen very quickly to change things.

He has hit the ground running. That was the most important thing for him to do--just do anything but do it quickly.

He's blown up the city's commissions by replacing many of the people who held those positions in the Hahn administration. There was too much baggage with many of these people. You couldn't figure out why they were appointed other than for political purposes.

He's put together a transportation plan, one he admits may take a while to come to fruition. That's understandable, our transportation system is a disaster and it will take a while to fix. At least it's a priority for him.

The best thing I've seen so far in the last month is that photo in all the local media of Villaraigosa last week in a hard hat on a streetpaving vehicle over in North Hollywood emphasizing the need to resurface some streets. Cheesey photo opportunity, of course. But that's exactly what we need right now in this city. Attention, attention, attention. Put a public focus on something. That usually is a good way to bring about change. That was a downfall of our former mayor. He didn't understand that a little bit of flash goes a long way.

These are a few of the things he's done in the last month. Not bad for putting a high profile on some pretty important things for Los Angeles.

All this is important for Valley business. Villaraigosa is targeting some basic physical and moral infrastructure issues that we need to fix before we can move forward and make L.A. a healthier and easier place to do business.

If you can't get to work conveniently with a good transportation system then that's a huge problem. Without decently paved streets, quality of life becomes poorer.

If you can't trust the people that are running the commissions that deal with our infrastructure and transportation issues then how can you comfortably do business and feel that your needs will be treated fairly?

The mayor got out of L.A. not long after taking office. No, not on vacation but away to Washington. Once again, he was keeping a high-profile on L.A. It was a media event

This city needs more media events right now. Seems odd to say that, but Villaraigosa needs to establish a foundation from which to work. This foundation must lay the base from which to deal with some issues that are holding back this city. These issues need to be dealt with in a strong and organized way--now. And the more attention on these things the better.

The issues--transportation, quality of life, trust in government and greater respect for the economic and cultural attributes of Los Angeles --are the basics fight now.

All else grows from these things. Business health and economic vitality of the area depends on it.

Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at [phone] or at [e-mail].