By Karen Ocamb

Often during his campaign, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa would say he wanted to find "the best and the brightest" people for his administration and commissions. He also pledged to make sure that those hired and appointed would "reflect the city," including the LGBT community. His pick of Wells Fargo's Shelly Freeman for the police commission was inspired and now Villaraigosa presents Nancy Sutley as deputy mayor for energy and the environment and Robert Saltzman for the Ethics Commission, whose resumes shimmer with credentials.

Richard Riordan was the first mayor to appoint an openly gay person when he named Mike Keeley, his 13-year law associate at Riordan & McKinzie, as a deputy mayor with responsibility for the budget and governmental oversight. Jim Hahn named Carmel Sella, his special assistant at the City Attorney's office and deputy mayor for intergovernmental relations. Both Keeley and Sella also served as liaisons to the LGBT community.

Villaraigosa's choice of Sutely for both the department she oversees and as the LGBT liaison may be brilliant as well as crafty for she brings impeccable credentials and no local organizational ties.

Sutley currently sits on the California State Water Resources Control Board where she is one of five full-time board members responsible for protecting California's water quality and resources. Translation: she knows regulations and gets "water politics."

Sutely was energy advisor to Gov. Gray Davis and served as the deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations within the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Before that she served as a senior policy advisor and special assistant at the federal EPA during the Clinton administration. She received her master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and her undergraduate degree from Cornell University. She lives in the Bay Area but has frequently visited L.A.

"I'll be new to the community," Sutley, 43, told IN during an Aug. 18 phone interview, though she has a network of lesbian and gay friends here, including attorney Cecilia Estolano whom she met 10 years ago at the EPA. She officially came out around the same time. "I was sick of being in the closet," she said. "I wanted to be more myself."

Sutley's LGBT involvement has revolved more around "visibility" and workplace issues, "being an out lesbian official with a fairly high level position." For instance, in 1996 she worked with GLOBE, a group of LGBT federal employees, to get the EPA to recognize June as Pride Month. "My boss got a lot of grief from some of the more unenlightened members of Congress. It caused a slight uproar. But she stuck to her guns and with the gay and lesbian employees," Sutely said.

Though she has agreed to serve as liaison, the scope of her role has yet to be defined. However, she will have an "open door policy," she said. She's also looking forward "to working for someone who says 'I want L.A. to be a green city.' It's very exciting." Sutely, who does not have a partner, starts her new job on Aug. 29.

As most Angelenos know, Villaraigosa won the mayor's race two months ago not only because of his experience, life story, infectious smile, and positive vision for the city, but because of the real and perceived ethics problems suffocating the Hahn administration. The choice of Robert M. Saltzman, associate dean at the USC School of Law, to be a member of the five-member, independent Ethics Commission was smart and significant for the LGBT community.

Saltzman's "experience and judgment will undoubtedly serve our city well as we work to restore public trust and ensure greater fiscal accountability," Villaraigosa said upon making the announcement Aug. 8.

During his 17 years at the USC Law School, Saltzman has taught ethics and professional standards while overseeing admissions, recruitment, financial aid, and career services. He has written scores of publications and received many academic and community honors.

In 1985-1988, during the deepening AIDS crisis, Saltzman was special counsel to the director of health services for L.A. County. In 1987, he created the Office of AIDS Programs and Policy and convinced the Republican-controlled Board of Supervisors to increase HIV/AIDS funding. "This was at a time when it was unclear what was really going on," Saltzman said. With his "good friend" Rand Schrader, he also helped create the HIV Commission.

In 1981, Saltzman came out and worked as an openly gay senior deputy to L.A. County Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman, the very gay-positive politician whose district included West Hollywood. He was also an adjunct assistant professor of law at USC Law School.

(Openly gay lawyer Rich Llewellyn succeeded Saltzman at Edelman's office. Recently Llewellyn moved from being a senior deputy to L.A. City Councilmember Eric Garcetti to serving in L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office.)

Saltzman, 50, is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he met his partner of over 25 years, Ed Pierece, and graduated Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College.

"I was excited about Antonio being elected and when he announced he was looking for commissioners, I went online to apply. I thought this would be particularly interesting," Saltzman told IN. "I'm hopeful this new administration will bring a change in how people perceive what happens in city hall."

Saltzman hopes that the commission, in addition to its ethics oversight and enforcement function, will also assume the responsibility for ethics education.

"With what we've seen over the last few years, we need to do a good job of educating elected officials, city employees and other members of boards and commissions on what their responsibilities and limits are," he said, especially about gifts, income, and potential conflicts of interest. "I think the Ethics Commission has a role to play in the open government movement and the political reform movement."

(As IN goes to press, Dr. Mark Schuster, professor of pediatrics and health services at UCLA, was named to the Commission for Children, Youth and their Families. More in the next issue.)