Barely two months before the Los Angeles city election, Councilman Bernard C. Parks has replaced the entire management team of his mayoral campaign, signaling renewed turmoil in his first run for citywide office.
In his latest staff shake-up, Parks has dropped his campaign's most seasoned advisors: former Clinton White House operatives Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani; media consultant Eric Jaye, who oversaw Gavin Newsom's winning run for mayor of San Francisco in 2003; and campaign manager Carol Butler, a veteran of U.S. Senate races.
Parks' new campaign manager, Jewett Walker, will be the fourth to hold that job since last summer. All of those who stepped aside in the new wave of departures did so by mutual agreement with Parks, according to the campaign.
The staff upheaval comes as Parks faces a steep challenge in raising enough money to compete effectively with Mayor James K. Hahn and the three other major candidates in the March 8 election.
The most recent finance reports available show that Parks had just over $266,000 on hand at the end of September, well behind Hahn ($1.8 million), former state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg ($822,000) and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa ($609,553), and just ahead of state Sen. Richard Alarcon ($179,028). The campaigns must file updated reports by Monday.
Parks advisors declined to say what the upcoming report would show. However, the terminology they used in describing the staff changes -- a shift in focus to a grass-roots campaign -- suggested that fundraising had not recovered dramatically.
In an interview, Parks said "limited resources" were a factor in overhauling -- and scaling back -- his management team.
"We did not want to spend the bulk of our money on consultants and have no campaign," he said.
The candidate's son, Bernard Parks Jr., took a leave of absence Friday from his job as the councilman's chief of staff to handle press relations for the campaign. The candidate's wife, Bobbie Parks, has also been deeply involved in running the campaign and is expected to continue to play a central role.
Trouble in the Parks camp could have significant repercussions for the other candidates, most of all Hahn. The mayor's support for dumping Parks as Los Angeles police chief in 2002 led to a plunge in Hahn's support among black voters, a pillar of the mayor's political base.
