Villaraigosa recommends three city employee pension board members; City Council must approve
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has picked three new commissioners to oversee the city’s employee pension funds, replacing appointees who resigned abruptly last month – two of them in the wake of an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Villaraigosa named attorney Dean Hansell, a police commissioner during the Riordan administration, to replace Sean Harrigan, who had been serving as president of the Fire and Police Pensions. He selected USC professor Adlai Wertman to replace Elliott Broidy, another board member at the public safety pension fund, and offered retired investment executive Roberta Conroy a seat on the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System board.
Broidy and Harrigan stepped down a few weeks after they received a letter from the SEC asking them to describe any contact they had with three firms under scrutiny in the probe of alleged kickbacks in New York state’s pension system. Both men said they had committed no wrongdoing but viewed the SEC inquiry as a distraction.
Harrigan has faced questions over his decision to work for companies that had business before his board, including Wetherly Capital, a third-party marketer with various pension clients. He and his attorney said he recused himself from such matters when necessary.
In recent weeks, Harrigan has also faced scrutiny for raising money for his union, United Food and Commercial Workers, from companies that came before him while he was serving on the California Public Employees' Retirement System. In an interview, he told the Sacramento Bee that he had solicited donations from “not more than two dozen” financial firms for the union’s campaign fund while on the CalPERS board.
Harrigan left CalPERS in 2004 and joined the Los Angeles pension board a year later.
Hansell, 57, has been on city commissions for more than a decade, serving on the Board of Police Commissioners from 1997 to 2001 and on the board of the Information and Technology Agency from 2001 to 2008.
Wertman, 49, is a professor of clinical management and organization at USC's Marshall School of Business.
Conroy, 54, a former executive with The Capital Group Cos., will replace Kelly Candaele at the City Employees’ Retirement System. Villaraigosa asked Candaele to resign in April after the commissioner participated in a fundraiser for Councilman Jack Weiss’ city attorney bid – a violation of city law.
All three nominees must be confirmed by the City Council. Conroy and Wertman both live in Pacific Palisades.
-- David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall
