The head of the nation's largest municipal utility resigned Friday, immediately igniting a debate over the process that will be used by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to find a successor.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power General Manager Ron Deaton, who forged a reputation as one of the most powerful bureaucrats at City Hall, sent a letter to city officials saying he was resigning "with a heavy heart" after working in city government for 42 years.
Deaton, 64, had been on medical leave since July, when he suffered a severe heart arrhythmia that left him in a coma for two days. He has been away from the utility as it lobbies the City Council to approve a package of electricity and water rate increases that would be phased in by July 1, 2009.
Minutes before the resignation letter was released, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners -- a volunteer panel appointed by Villaraigosa -- voted behind closed doors to offer Deaton a $267,500 separation package, according to a source familiar with the agreement.
The source described the lump sum as less expensive than the nearly $690,000 the utility would have paid if Deaton were to stay with the agency on disability for the next two years. Deaton also was offered a life insurance policy that would cost the city $50,000.
Villaraigosa has not publicly said whom he wants to run the DWP, which provides water and electricity to 3.8 million households and businesses. But lawyer H. David Nahai, one of Villaraigosa's allies, resigned as DWP board president three weeks ago to seek Deaton's job if the post became vacant.
Nahai is expected to be nominated Monday as the replacement for Deaton, whose retirement will be effective Dec. 1.
Even before Deaton announced his resignation, environmentalists supported Nahai as the right person to move the DWP away from high-pollution coal plants and toward the construction of wind- and solar- generating facilities.
Nahai's potential hiring "represents the opportunity for a sea change," said Rhonda Mills, director of special projects at the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, who has discussed his candidacy with advisors to Villaraigosa and two council members.
Still, one member of the council, which must vote to confirm any DWP chief nominee, voiced concern over Nahai's ability to make the leap from his tiny law firm in Century City to a municipal utility with about 8,000 employees.
