INVENTIVE LEADERS CAN EMERGE IN CITY SERVICE.

Byline: Robin M. Kramer

I'VE learned volumes from working closely with Mayor Richard Riordan in his administration over the past five years - as about the importance of a relentless focus on community priorities, such as the successful, massive expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department, the creation of new primary centers for the city's youngest students and the massive overhaul, still under way, of our antiquated city government structure.

The most uplifting lesson: Leadership, collaboration and courage really can make a difference.

The most annoying lesson: The mayor, who is 20-plus years my senior, never gets tired.

The most compelling idea: the notion that entrepreneurship must become a central feature of local government. This is a different concept than the often repeated but mistaken ``run government like a business'' mantra, although there are some principles that overlap and some recent local history to draw upon.

Four years ago, while our city seemed destined to stay stuck in a spiral of unemployment and recession, no one exactly danced in the streets when noted scholar/economists lifted the curtain on the Los Angeles economy to reveal the makings of a vibrant comeback, already in progress. Maybe a music video of the fine work of David Friedman and Joel Kotkin, titled the ``New Los Angeles Economy,'' would have stirred greater hope. But their findings - that the backbone of the new economy was in small, entrepreneurial business, launched mostly by immigrants and those who used to work in aerospace, and in the explosive growth industries of the planet - have borne fruit in the form of local jobs in the multimedia, entertainment, high-tech, fashion, environmental technology and service industries.

In the private sector, people with moxie and skill have made the difference, taking risks and working hard. The region's economic comeback is alive, real and continuing.

These are lessons to apply to our civic culture. For a similar phenomenon could and might, and definitely should, leverage entrepreneurial capacity into the most misunderstood beast: Los Angeles city government. Already there are many islands of excellence and forward thinking in local government. Inventiveness ought to be supported and nurtured, becoming the rule, not the exception.

Mayor Riordan has launched a number of these successful new enterprises, such as the Los Angeles Business Team to attract and retain job-creating business, the city's Volunteer Bureau, to maximize the potential of 30,000 residents who love the city and want to give of their time to the community, and the Mayor's Alliance for a Safer Los Angeles, a public/private partnership that raised more than $16 million to design and purchase a basic computer platform for the Los Angeles Police Department, putting more officers on the street by liberating them from redundant paperwork in the office.

Inventive new public leaders who are problem-solvers with can-do energy and vision are also beginning to make their mark in a dozen city departments - from police, fire and human relations to housing and building and safety, from the zoo, cultural affairs and animal services to the behemoth Department of Water and Power. They are beginning to chip away at years of neglect, outmoded management and rear-view-mirror thinking. Like the thousands of successful leaders who run profit and nonprofit firms in the city, they know how to focus, inspire confidence and create accountability and efficiency.

Only two barriers could keep civic entrepreneurship from flourishing. The first would be the crush of the powerful forces inside City Hall who love the status quo. The second could be community apathy and disengagement.

Given the tremendous challenges our city still faces - inadequate schools and opportunities for our kids, the growing gap between rich and poor, aging infrastructure and more - it would be highly ironic and a real loss if the entrepreneurial spirit that has defined the Los Angeles economy and its comeback did not work on the city's behalf.