Spotlight casts deputy mayors in a harsh glare.

They're often young, they're almost always ambitious, they have limited government experience--and they're running the city of Los Angeles.

They are deputy mayors and their role is to implement the mayor's will.

Until recently, they operated largely out of the public limelight, overseeing key departments, crunching budget numbers and lobbying the City Council and other key constituencies. But all that has changed as allegations of "pay-to-play" surrounding airport and harbor department contracts have dogged the Hahn administration, particularly departing Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards.

Controversy over the position took center stage two weeks ago with the departures of four deputy mayors within a 10-day period. Edwards, who has been questioned by a Los Angeles grand jury, was under fire for what some considered a heavy-handed style. Many say he was just in over his head.

Hahn had 11 deputy mayors working for him at one point--a higher number than any previous L.A. mayor or mayors of other major U.S. cities. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has five deputies, while Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has four deputy chiefs of staff, which are roughly equivalent in responsibility.

"Nearly every time I've been inside City Hall, I've run into a deputy mayor," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. "It really makes you wonder, if there are so many of them, just how important can each one be?"

Hahn's chief of staff, Tim McOsker, told the Business Journal last week that there were no immediate plans to replace the departed deputies, which would leave the total at seven. McOsker said that the city's hiring freeze is a factor in the decision not to hire replacements.

Powerful deputy mayors

Deputy mayors weren't always so ubiquitous. Former mayors Sam Yorty and Tom Bradley had only two. One was also chief of staff and wielded substantial power; the other was more of a symbolic post designed to outreach other government agencies, as well as to the Latino and other ethic communities.

"It was great to be a deputy mayor back then," said Ray Remy, longtime deputy mayor and chief of staff to Bradley. "I could represent Tom (Bradley) at the National League of Cities, I could visit with members of Congress on a whole range of issues, and I could deal with all 15 councilmembers. And each time, I knew that the boss would back me up. When you told someone, 'I will take it back to the mayor,' that's all you had to do, take it back and it got done."

Remy who went on to head the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said that he had anywhere from 12 to 15 staff members in the mayor's office who reported to him directly. "A lot of people that would now be called deputy mayors were in this group," he said. Those included the budget director and those charged with oversight over the public works, airport, harbor and transportation departments.

Under former Mayor Richard Riordan, all that changed. When Riordan came into office in 1993, he pledged to shake things up after 20 years of Bradley's administration. He started by creating four deputy mayor posts. Under the City Charter, the mayor has complete authority to structure his own staff, as long as the office stays within its allotted budget.

"The idea was to hire the best and the brightest people to come in and get things done," said Riordan, now state Education Secretary to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I gave them the title of deputy mayor as a way of giving them more power and then telling them to get things done. It also helped as a recruitment tool, to bring in the best people."

The lure of such an exalted title was designed to offset the fact that so many of those coming in from the private sector to serve in the Riordan administration were taking huge pay cuts, Guerra said.

(Current salaries for deputy mayors average just above $100,000.)

Riordan also began the trend of giving the title of deputy mayor to those responsible for specific policy areas, especially economic development, which was one of the cornerstones of his administration.

At the end of his first term, after the resignation of chief operating officer Michael Keeley, Riordan brought in a consultant from McKinsey & Co. to re-evaluate the structure of the office.

"They spent a lot of time looking at how the office worked given (Riordan's) management style," said Kelly Martin, a former law partner of Riordan's and former deputy mayor for finance and policy.

At the time, the number of deputy mayors was set at five, though later it grew to six.

Martin said that while there were five deputy mayors, three or four others on the mayor's staff had the same pay grade and significant responsibilities.

For the most part, Riordan's deputy mayors had unfettered access to the mayor and talked with him daily or several times a week.

"We had a very collegial ethic in our office," said Robin Kramer, who joined Riordan's staff in 1993 as deputy mayor for legislation and community affairs and then served as chief of staff from 1995 until 1998.

The office was not without its problems. After Kramer left, Riordan went through three chiefs of staff in quick succession. He also found himself stymied by the City Council, to a greater extent than his predecessors. Often, during heated disagreements, councilmembers blamed Riordan's staff for not consulting with them.

When Hahn took over as mayor in 2001, he expanded the number of deputy mayors, with nine posts at the outset.

"The mayor had a very aggressive set of priorities and he wanted to make sure he had a deputy mayor for each of them," McOsker said. "He wanted a deputy mayor for public safety, for workforce development, for housing, for education, in addition to maintaining the deputy mayor posts for economic development, communications and intergovernmental relations."

But with so many deputy mayors, a pecking order developed in which some had more access to Hahn than others.

"People soon realized that if a deputy mayor showed up in their offices, that person wasn't necessarily all-powerful," said Raphael Sonenshein, professor of political science at California State University Fullerton. Sonenshein has studied L.A. government extensively. "It's like a bank naming everyone a vice president."

As was the case in the Riordan administration, several of these deputy mayors came to their posts with little City Hall experience, although McOsker pointed out many had substantial experience in federal government or at other government agencies.

One of those who didn't have much experience was Edwards, who joined Hahn's mayoral campaign in 2000 as an energetic 34-year-old fundraiser and quickly caught Hahn's eye. Hahn rewarded him with the plum assignment of deputy mayor overseeing the port, the airport and the Department of Water & Power. He also became Hahn's appointment secretary.

Two of the other departing deputy mayors--deputy mayor for workforce development Joy Chen and deputy mayor for housing Sarah Dusseault--are also in their 30s. But McOsker said at least three of the remaining seven deputy mayors are over 40.

Perception is part of the equation.

"Look, if the three deputy mayors who left at the end of last month had titles of 'assistant' or "director" instead of 'deputy mayor,' I guarantee that it wouldn't have had such a great impact." Guerra said. "It was the title that each had as deputy mayor that made people sit up and take notice, perhaps giving the event greater significance than it otherwise would have had."

Guerra, Sonenshein and others said that a more streamlined staff would probably better serve Hahn. That means fewer deputy mayors.

"There's no obvious reason why everybody has to be called a deputy mayor," Sonenshein said. "You could call them assistants and they could still get the job done."

Riordan said the title was not as important as the person who fills the post.

"The story here is not how many deputy mayors you have," Riordan said. "It's how you operate the city and to whom you give the authority and responsibility. If you get talented, dedicated people, the rest will take care of itself."