NEW DWP LEADER MAY BE OUT OF HIS LEAGUE.

Byline: Sharon Woodson-Bryant

Local View

I have a good friend who was high on the political ladder back in the 1990s. When she had an unexpected opening that needed to be filled quickly at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, she called me in for an interview with her team.

Now, deep down inside I had some concerns about such a quantum leap into a position that would oversee a staff of nearly 60 people with a budget in the millions. But my friend believed in me and said she had no doubts that I could handle the job. So I convinced myself that I should take the risk.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime, I told myself over and over. Here I was, someone with a strong background in public affairs, but had never supervised more than four or five employees or managed a budget anywhere near that amount in my life.

I accepted. We hugged. And it was the worst two months in my professional life.

At the executive staff meetings, I felt as though I was at a foreign film desperately searching for the subtitles because it was like these people were talking in another language. Every morning I would park, then sit in my car and pray I could make it through the day. Clearly, I was in over my head.

I had started the first of December but by the last Thursday in January, I gave my boss notice that I was quitting the next day. I will never forget his parting words to me: "Sharon, I wish I could leave with you!"

What is the moral to this tale? Sometimes loyalty in the political arena can be hazardous. And I believe that will be the case for H. David Nahai, who has replaced Ron Deaton as head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation's largest public utility with a $6.16billion annual budget, 8,375 employees and a service area of 465 square miles.

Just like me, Nahai has no experience managing more than five or six people as a lawyer with a small environmental law firm in Century City. This is like appointing a meter maid to head the police department.

I am not alone with my assessment. City Beat News Editor Alan Mittelstaedt said recently in an opinion piece: "Someone should show mercy and tell David Nahai that he's the wrong guy for the job. You'd think as president of the DWP Board of Commissioners he'd know he's not up to taming the 8,000-strong work force. But the mayor wants this erudite fellow to become the next general manager of the very powerful and very important Department of Water and Power."

But Nahai is the buddy of Mayor Villaraigosa. In fact, Nahai has been one of the few politically active members of the local Iranian-Jewish community. And he was key in campaigning and helping Villaraigosa with fundraising efforts in the larger Iranian community for his 2005 mayoral race.

In other words, he is the mayor's ATM to a very wealthy piece of the L.A. pie.

Now, most people agree that Nahai has earned credentials as a strong advocate for green power, but how does being a DWP commissioner for two years qualify him to lead the agency? Is it only because his main qualification is being a strong ally to the mayor.

From what I have been told, the DWP position is significant in that Nahai becomes one of only two Iranian Jews currently serving in local government in Southern California. Obviously, heading this massive department would indeed be a great achievement for the Iranian-Jewish community. In addition to the fact that political activism is a fairly new phenomenon for Iranian-Jewish immigrants who, for more than 2,000 years in Iran, were generally denied voting rights and the right to partake in political activities.

But evidently Nahai still needs a better understanding of the civil- rights struggle in this country, because when someone questioned having an all-white male panel for a local utility's annual environmental forum, Nahai nixed the idea. Since he was on the panel, he said minorities were represented, and there was no reason to add a black or a Latino or an Asian-American. If the mayor's foot soldier is going to get a paycheck that matches Deaton's $345,000 a year, he should be required to take some diversity training and to take a junket outside the green community to meet with some of L.A.'s darker hues.