New Organization at LADOT Marks the End of an Era

Ladot Re-Organization Memo (2012!02!17) With Org Chart-1 (1)

In February, LADOT General Manager Jaime De La Vega announced a small shakeup in the Department, streamlining the organizational flowchart and altering the jobs of some of it’s top brass.  Perhaps the biggest news was the announced retirement of longtime Assistant General Manager John Fisher, who many viewed as a top candidate for the general manager position the last couple of times the position opened up.

More on Fisher’s retirement at the end of this story.

Part of the department’s reorganization saw the reasigning of the office of Transportation Operations headed by Fisher.  The closest parallel is the newly created Department of Project Delivery that will be headed by Zaki Mustafa.  Project Delivery is responsible for developing and overseeing projects through planning, environmental, and design phases.  Project Deliver will also support work done in the city by other agencies, such as Metro, undertaking a public works project on the street.  The divisions of this project include Design, Development, Highway, Pedestrian and Transit and Bicycle Divisions.

LADOT also spun off some of Transportation Operations’ old duties into the Division of Operations.  The operations group is led by Selwyn Hollins and is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the department as it relates to the streets including a new unit dedicated to the city’s emergency preparedness response, emergency response, temporary traffic management and ATSAC Operations.

Despite the controversy of the Gold Card Desk, a place where parking tickets could get “fixed” by City Council Offices that dominated headlines last summer, the new organization did not move Amir Sedadi, who oversees that division.  Sedadi served as Interim General Manager between the terms of Rita Robinson and De La Vega.

As we mentioned previously, De La Vega also announced the eminent retirement of John Fisher.  Fisher served at LADOT for nearly four decades, most recently as the Assistant General Manager for Engineering where he signed off on almost every infrastructure project in the city.  For the next several months, Fisher will serve as a special assistant to the general manager advising on legal and other issues.  LADOT declined interview requests for Mr. Fisher’s retirement pointing to De La Vega’s comments in the memorandum which noted his “long and illustrious career” at LADOT.