Garcetti Extends Building and Safety Chief's Employment

By City News Service

Mayor Eric Garcetti has decided to give Raymond Chan a six-month extension as the interim general manager of the Department of Building and Safety, according to a letter obtained today.

Chan was among the more than 30 department heads summoned into a meeting by Garcetti earlier this year and told they must re-apply to keep their jobs. Six department heads, including the fire chief and the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, have since announced their retirement or resignation.

In a letter to the City Council dated Wednesday, Garcetti endorsed Chan's ability to "continue to do an outstanding job" as the Building and Safety Department's interim general manager and said Chan should get another six months to do the job on a temporary basis.

The extension would also give Garcetti another six months to make a decision about who to appoint permanently to the job. In the meantime, the nature of the job itself may change under a potential overhaul of several city departments.

City leaders earlier this year approved the consolidation of the planning and building and safety departments, with the planned merger scheduled to go into effect in January.

However, Garcetti has expressed some doubts about the plan, telling the Los Angeles Times editorial board last month that he wants to take another look at the proposal.

Chan, a structural and civil engineer who has worked in city government for 29 years, was appointed as the interim head of the department in May after Bud Ovrom was selected to lead the Los Angeles Convention Center by then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Chan's temporary appointment ends Sunday. An extension requires approval by the City Council.

Chan recently announced he has been absolved of ethics violation allegations made against him by opponents of the Hollywood skyscraper project, Millennium Hollywood.

The project, which includes 35- and 39-story towers flanking the Capitol Records building, cannot move forward without a go-ahead from the Building and Safety Department.

Project opponents lodged an ethics complaint in September saying Chan had a conflict of interest because his son interned with Sheppard Mullin, the legal firm representing the project's developer.

A month later, Chan sent out an email saying ethics enforcement officials "dismissed the false and baseless allegation that was filed against me."

Ethics officials "did not find any ethics violation or wrong doing what so ever" and gave him a "clean bill of health," he said.

Ethics Commission officials said they were restricted by city charter from confirming or denying the existence of the ethics complaint or any decisions they may have made regarding a potential complaint against Chan.