Consultants

Christopher D. Budden has been elected president of Richard Ellis Inc., real estate consultants with offices in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and 24 other cities in 13 countries worldwide.

A Los Angeles City Council committee came up with a plan Tuesday to avoid laying off more than 200 city workers at least until Jan. 1, thanks in part to a last-minute discovery of new tax revenues. By realizing an additional $5.8 million in higher than expected property taxes and trimming money from city departments and contracts with outside consultants, the council's Budget and Finance Committee was able to put on hold a plan by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to eliminate 669 positions, 209 of which are currently filled.

If you are interested in hiring an environmental consultant, it may be wise to heed the advice of Joel Moskowitz, author of "Environmental Liability and Real Property Transactions," published in May. Moskowitz recently characterized the mushrooming industry in real estate environmental assessments as "akin to the Gold Rush, in the same way that all the miners who were attracted to California were not necessarily the world's best miners."

When actress Kerry Washington was preparing for her role as Olivia Pope, the high-octane Beltway "fixer" on the new ABC series "Scandal," one of the first things she did was launch a Google search for Judy Smith, the real-life crisis consultant on whose professional life the series is based. Washington was somewhat perplexed by how little came up on the D.C. insider who had navigated through some of the thorniest public relations challenges of the past 20 years on behalf of her clients, including Monica Lewinsky, former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and NFL quarterback Michael Vick, to name a few. There were no interviews and rarely even media mention of the public relations powerhouse.

Anyone wondering whether Orange County businesses are concerned about the spiraling cost of employee health benefits needs only look at the expansion under way at the Orange office of William M. Mercer Inc., an employee benefit consulting firm. Lee Grover, managing principal of the office, said that last year the office generated $5 million in revenue, up 30% from 1988. And revenue climbed 36% during the first quarter of 1989, compared to the same period a year ago.

Hoping to keep workers off picket lines, Ventura County administrators and union officials have launched a search for an independent consultant to assess the cost of an expanded retirement package at the center of tense contract negotiations.

Successful congressional campaigns often spawn new consultants. Mal Warwick, a highly successful direct-mail fund-raiser for liberal causes, began his career in the early 1970s using a tiny computer in his kitchen to raise money for his friend, Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley). "I wasn't even familiar with the term 'direct mail' back then," recalls Warwick. "But we knew we weren't going to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars by holding barbecues and celebrity cocktail parties."

As much as $11.4 million in Southern California Edison ratepayers' money has been misspent or fraudulently billed by an outside consultant with little or no experience in the utility industry, the company acknowledged Tuesday.

"We serve a very important link between consumers and companies," says Kathryn Moore, a home economics consultant in Kansas City, Mo. Moore is one of the growing number of home economists working as consultants for corporations. She specializes in food writing, developing recipes for major food companies and testing such consumer appliances as mixers and slow cookers. She also writes instructional manuals for such products.

O.J. Simpson's money has allowed him to play something denied most criminal case defendants: the jury manipulation game. Most of the time, defendants' attorneys pick jurors by a much speedier process, operating mostly by instinct. The Simpson defense team has hired an expensive jury consultant and undoubtedly has conducted polls and analyzed each prospective juror for pro and anti feelings toward Simpson.

A cultural moment is passing. The space shuttle Discovery, strapped to the back of a Boeing 747, was recently ferried with great fanfare to its new home at a branch of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. The California Science Center is building an aircraft hangar for its sister shuttle, Endeavour, which is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in the fall. The remaining shuttle, Atlantis, is in Florida, where it will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center. Useful artifacts of daily life, however rarefied, are moving into the look-but-don't-touch precinct of museum galleries, like ancient Greek storage vases or Edwardian pantaloons.

Dear Liz: I am 84, and my husband is 88. We have two daughters, the elder of whom is married to a very controlling man. In the past, we lent them money and were paid back. But starting in 2009 his small business began to do poorly. They borrowed nearly $100,000 from us. Then in 2010, he begged us to get a home equity loan on our home, which was paid for. They now owe us $300,000. We make the home equity payments of $800 a month because they are not able to pay that amount.

During Nirbhay Singh's eight years as lead consultant for California's psychiatric hospitals, state officials hired his relatives, then urged the facilities to use a little-known therapy and psychological questionnaire they had devised, state records and interviews show. To fill out Singh's consulting team, the Department of Mental Health in 2006 hired his wife, Judy Singh, whose background is in reading comprehension and adult literacy. Over 41/2 years, she earned more than $340,000, primarily training staff members in a therapy she helped develop, state records show.

A transportation expert hired by California bullet train officials to ensure the accuracy of critical ridership forecasts worked for the company that prepared the estimates and maintains a close relationship with one of the firm's top executives. The consultant, Frank S. Koppelman, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at Northwestern University, has chaired the California High-Speed Rail Authority's ridership review panel since December 2010, assessing the projections of Cambridge Systematics Inc., a Massachusetts-based research company.

Convicted campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee cut a destructive path across California's political landscape, allegedly pilfering millions in political funds from Democrats in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Washington, D.C. And on Friday, a high-profile Los Angeles-based political consultant publicly leveled his own accusation against Durkee, saying she stole more than $1 million of his family's personal money. The consultant, John Shallman, was one of Durkee's closest colleagues and is currently advising candidates for Los Angeles mayor, city attorney and district attorney.

A Ventura County commission is trying to keep secret the details of a state-ordered investigation into the management and claims procedures of a healthcare plan designed to serve the county's neediest residents. Complaints about alleged late payments and poor management prompted the Department of Health Care Services to request that auditors step in and examine the plan's financial condition and claims practices. Gold Coast Health Plan was launched last year to switch an estimated 110,000 Ventura County Medi-Cal beneficiaries into an HMO-style healthcare plan.  Previously, doctors and hospitals were free to charge Medi-Cal directly on a fee-for-service basis.

Pressed by the city's growing need for affordable housing for lower-income residents, the City Council on Monday said it is seeking a consultant to draft strategies for addressing the housing problem. A staff report to the council said that Huntington Beach already is falling behind legal requirements for affordable housing. Of five new housing projects in the downtown area, only one has a portion allocated for lower-income families, according to the report.

Setting yourself apart from competitors in an overcrowded profession often means the difference between success and failure for a consultant. Being the best in town is not enough. Potential clients like to think they are hiring a recognized specialist in one particular area. Jain Malkin, founder of the small San Diego interior design firm bearing her name, said she did not want to be one of thousands of interior designers competing for work in the corporate office world.

Warner Bros.' international television unit is teaming with two Chinese production companies to create a Chinese teen drama series inspired by "Gossip Girl," which airs in the United States on the CW Network. "Gossip Girl," about a group of wealthy back-stabbing Manhattanites, has been a cult hit for the cable channel for the last five years and launched the careers of actresses Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. Tentatively called "China Girl," the show will be in Mandarin and launch in November on satellite television, with "Gossip Girl" creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage consulting.

Dozens of wealthy homeowners who got large, improper tax breaks from a rogue county employee in recent years had one thing in common: They had hired a consultant at the center of an influence-peddling investigation roiling the Los Angeles County assessor's office. Clients of the tax agent, Ramin Salari, dominate a list of 125 property owners in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and other Westside communities who benefited from the actions of a former property appraiser who without approval wiped more than $56 million in taxable value from the county tax roll.