Metropolitan Board Seats New Delegation from City of Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES -- Four new directors representing the city of Los Angeles were seated today on Metropolitan Water District's Board of Directors.

Nancy Sutley, Aaron A. Grunfeld, John W. Murray Jr. and Jesus E. Quinonez will comprise the Los Angeles delegation on Metropolitan's 37-member governing board.

Metropolitan Chairman Wes Bannister appointed Sutley to the board's water planning, quality and resources committee, communications and legislation committee, and CALFED/Bay-Delta oversight subcommittee; Grunfeld to budget, finance, investment and insurance committee, recreation committee, and Colorado River oversight subcommittee; Murray to the engineering and operations committee, and education and outreach committee; and Quinonez to the legal and claims committee, and ethics committee.

The city's deputy mayor for energy and environment, Sutley served on the California State Water Resources Control Board from 2003 to 2005. During her tenure, the five-member SWRCB, which is responsible for protecting water quality and resources throughout California, also developed statewide water protection plans, established water quality standards and implemented state and federal water quality laws.

Prior to her SWRCB confirmation by the state Senate in 2003, Sutley served as energy advisor to Gov. Gray Davis, managing state and federal regulatory, legislative, financial and press matters. From 1999-2003, she was deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations within the California Environmental Protection Agency, where she advised on water and air pollution policy, lobbied federal agencies and Congress, and established budget and legislative priorities.

A native of New York City, Sutley received a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in government from Cornell University.

Grunfeld is an attorney with the Los Angeles law firm of Resch, Polster, Alpert & Berger, where he has focused his law practice on securities and corporate matters, including domestic and international transactions. As a counsel to companies and investment bankers since 1971, Grunfeld has been involved in more than 50 registered public offerings of securities, as well as numerous private placements and merger and reorganization transactions.

He has counseled clients on issues relating to enforcement and other regulatory concerns involving the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., the California Department of Corporations and other state regulatory agencies. Most recently, Grunfeld oversaw the financing and merger of a leading stem cell research company, an initial offering of securities for an intrastate pipeline firm, and the merger and financing of a now publicly traded jewelry company.

Grunfeld received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Charles Evans Hughes Fellow and Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar, and earned a bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA.

He and his wife, Patricia, have two daughters and two sons.

Murray is president and chief executive officer of the Southern California Minority Business Development Council. Established in 1974, the council is the largest nonprofit minority business advocacy organization in the region, serving more than 1,300 African American-, Latino American-, Asian American- and Native American-owned businesses and more than 200 corporate members throughout 13 Southland counties.

Prior to assuming leadership of the council in 2002, Murray was senior vice president of U.S. Public Technologies, Inc., which specialized in highway and traffic safety solutions, from 1996 to 2001. Following the company's acquisition by Affiliated Computer Services in 2001, Murray led the company's marketing program for traffic safety systems in the western United States.

Murray has served in various posts in the public sector, including as legislative deputy for state Sen. Nate Holden from 1976-77, and as chief of staff to Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell from 1977-80. In 1991, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley appointed Murray as commissioner on the city's Board of Public Works, where he served until 1992.

A native of Lynchburg, Va., he attended Pepperdine University and California State University, Dominguez Hills. Murray has completed advanced real estate studies at UCLA's graduate extension programs and at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Murray is a member of the Central City Association, serving on the association's executive policy committee and government relations committee. He also has served as a personnel commissioner for the Los Angeles Unified School District and as a member of the Rail Construction Corporation's board of directors.

Murray and his wife, Madelyn, have two adult sons.

An attorney, Quinonez is a partner in the Burbank-based law firm of Geffner & Bush, which specializes in representing public and private sector labor organizations and employee benefit plans, labor relations law and governmental advocates.

A Los Angeles native, Quinonez majored in history at Harvard University and UCLA and received his law degree from UCLA. He has authored "Challenging Underground Regulations" for the California Labor and Employment Law Quarterly in the fall of 1997, and "Labor Law Protections of Undocumented Employees After the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986" for the law quarterly in the summer of 1990.

A member of the California State Bar, he has served as an executive committee member of the Bar's labor and employment law section. He also is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, Los Angeles County Bar Association and American Bar Association, as well as the Bet Tzedek Legal Services board of directors.

He has three daughters.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving 18 million people in six counties. The district imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California to supplement local supplies, and helps its members to develop increased water conservation, recycling, storage and other resource-management programs.

Note to editors: Digital photographs of Directors Nancy Sutley, Aaron A. Grunfeld, John W. Murray Jr. and Jesus E. Quinonez are available upon request.