I haven’t written about it here, but many of you close to our family know that Dara and I moved to Seal Beach this summer to help out my in-laws in the wake of my father-in-law (Ron Deaton) falling ill in July. While on vacation in Costa Rica, Ron suffered cardiac arrhythmia. It is remarkable that the paramedics were able to revive him, and it is even more astounding that he is on his way to a full recovery. We’ve witnessed miracle after miracle over the last few months. It is a privilege to experience this story as it unfolds.

Adding to the layers of intrigue is the fact that Ron is the General Manager of the LA Department of Water and Power. Thus, city officials and local newspapers are following Ron’s recovery with keen interest as well. Yesterday, the LA Times’ “California” section featured a nice cover story profiling Ron’s career with the city. I’ve included the story at length.

The pictures I’ve included here were taken at a “Project Restore” gala that honored Ron for his vision and tireless effort in championing the restoration and preservation of several LA landmarks like Olvera Street and City Hall itself. I get glimpses into my father-in-law’s passion for LA and his influence over her well-being, when we go to events like this one.

I go to the LA Zoo’s “Beastly Ball” fundraiser each year, and we shake the Zoo Director’s hand as he tells us how thankful he is for Ron and the role he’s played in improving the zoo’s quality. They like to tell a story about Dara (Ron’s daughter and my wife) visiting the zoo as a little girl. Someone around her mentioned something about the zoo’s deterioration and the animals’ declining conditions. Dara looked imploringly at her father and said, “You have to do something.” From then on, Ron made the zoo and its well-being a personal passion.

When I go to the Staples Center, I am reminded that it may not exist if it weren’t for Ron’s involvement in the negotiations. There are other landmarks like a lighthouse and bath house down in San Pedro, not to mention numerous police and fire stations, that are indebted to Ron (at least in part) for their preservation and construction. The crown jewel of his restoration efforts will always be his beloved City Hall. Is there any other building in LA with such character, elegance, and charm?

The Mayor’s office issued the following statement that nicely summarizes Ron’s contributions to Los Angeles.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:

On behalf of the entire City, I want to thank Ron Deaton for dedicating a brilliant 42-year career to Los Angeles.

From his first day on the job at the age of 22, this is a man who literally did it all for Angelenos. He kept the lights on through fires and blackouts. He balanced the books. He helped build parks, police stations and libraries. He kept us united as one city.

More than that, Ron always embodied the idea that public service is the highest calling.
We wish Ron and his family the greatest happiness as they begin an exciting new phase in their lives.

Ron’s opponents have called him Darth Sidious and the Joker, and he laughs good-naturedly at such comparisons to super-villains. But it was The Daily News that coined my favorite nickname for Ron almost exactly 11 years prior to his recent heart episode. On July 7, 1996, they featured Ron in an article entitled, “The Prince of the City.” It is that kind name that well represents Ron as an LA leader with a vested interest in the prosperity of all her citizens.

DWP boss weighs his options

Ron Deaton has been on medical leave since suffering a heart ailment last summer. A decision about his future could come this week.

By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 22, 2007

If anyone has been a symbol of unseen power and influence at Los Angeles City Hall, it’s Ron Deaton, a 42-year bespectacled bureaucrat who built a formidable reputation by getting the city’s elected leaders to do what he told them.

In the decade that he advised the 15-member City Council, such labels as “the most powerful person in City Hall” and “the 16th council member” attached themselves to the Seal Beach resident. And when he took the top job at the city’s Department of Water and Power in 2004, Deaton found another place where he could affect the lives of millions while staying out of the public eye.

But these days, Deaton is participating in a different behind-the-scenes drama, as he, his doctors and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wait to see whether, or when, he will leave the agency that provides electricity and water to 3.8 million residents and businesses.

Deaton, 64, has been on medical leave from the DWP since July, when the vacationing DWP chief was airlifted out of Costa Rica after suffering a severe heart arrhythmia. He spent two days in a coma. And he has been going through a painstaking rehabilitation that tests both his physical strength and his short-term memory.

Sources familiar with the DWP say Deaton could decide his future as soon as this week. Meanwhile, one of Villaraigosa’s closest allies, attorney H. David Nahai, has gone so far as to resign from the appointed DWP commission to improve his chances of replacing Deaton.

The man who still holds the post, however, has made no announcement. While he confirmed last week that he has been looking at retirement “very seriously,” Deaton also said that he has had a remarkable recovery for someone who was on the brink of death last summer.

“I feel confident that at some point I could come back,” Deaton said last week. “I started in 1965, so not going back there has personal consequences.”

With an annual salary of nearly $345,000, Deaton is the top wage-earner at City Hall and a force in local government. As the city’s chief legislative analyst from 1993 to late 2004, he engineered a number of successful bond measures that paid for new police stations, fire stations, libraries, parks and other facilities.

Deaton played a key role in giving the federal government oversight of reforms at the Los Angeles Police Department and mastered the details of such mega-projects as Staples Center, the sports arena built in 1999 with the city’s financial help.

“If there was a deal that had to be done, it was Ron who did it,” said former City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who relied on Deaton’s advice during much of her 16-year tenure.

Deaton played an especially influential role in the 2002 fight over San Fernando Valley secession, spending countless hours on behalf of the city, which did not want to lose the Valley, negotiating with a county agency over the wording of the breakaway ballot measure.

The ballot language proved unappealing to many voters, sending the measure to its doom. The make-or-break issue was one dear to Deaton’s heart: the possibility that neither water nor electricity would be delivered to Valley residents at a reasonable price.

“People in the Valley may not care about [who gets the Central Library, but they would be concerned about who gets the water and who gets the power,” he said.

Deaton’s move to the DWP two years later was viewed as a victory lap of sorts. His first government job had been at the utility. Yet some were surprised when he devoted considerable energy to the signing of an agreement that promised that the DWP would warn neighborhood councils in advance about major policy changes at the utility, including customer rate hikes.

DWP Commissioner Nick Patsaouras, a Villaraigosa appointee who has lodged some brutal critiques against the utility, said last week that Deaton had done a good job. And some of the city’s crustiest community leaders praised Deaton for collaborating with the neighborhood councils.

“There’s no one I respect in government more than Ron Deaton,” said downtown activist Brady Westwater, who sat across the table from Deaton during the bargaining sessions.

Westwater, like many others who have known Deaton, has not spoken with him since the DWP executive’s disastrous trip to Costa Rica. The attack struck when Deaton was in his hotel room, sending him to a public hospital in San Jose.

Days later, friends transported Deaton and his wife back to Los Angeles in a tiny plane that flew directly from Costa Rica to Burbank. “I was on it. She was on it. There were two or three other people, and there wasn’t room for any more,” he said.

Deaton is sketchy on other details, in part because he has no memory of the Central America trip, from the moment he packed his luggage to the day he regained consciousness. Since then, he has begun a lengthy recovery, walking on a treadmill and learning to regain his balance, and traveled to other parts of the state with his family.

In his absence, the DWP grappled with its second straight summer of power outages and pushed a series of rate hikes crafted by Deaton. And despite the fact that no retirement announcement has been made, environmentalists have begun lobbying city officials to support Nahai as Deaton’s successor.

Neither his wife nor his children want him to return to his job. But Deaton said he does not relish the idea of being on disability for the remainder of his tenure.

Regardless of whether he goes back to the DWP, Deaton said he intends to revisit the hospital in San Jose that saved his life.

“Someday, not tomorrow, I’m going to go back there and thank them for what they’ve done,” he said.

Read this article on the LA Times web site.

Ron’s Official Bio

Ron Deaton, a southern California native, was born in Long Beach on January 12, 1943 to parents, Nellie and Olon Deaton who came from Arkansas during the dust bowl. Ron attended Long Beach public schools from elementary school through Long Beach State College where he graduated with a B.A. in Economics. He is especially proud of graduating from Long Beach Poly High School, home of America’s greatest athletes. After graduating from Long Beach State in 1965, he began as an Administrative Assistant with the Power System of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. While at the DWP he earned his MBA from the University of Southern California.

It was at DWP he met his wife Ellery who also worked for the Power System. They were married October 1, 1966 in Seal Beach. Four years later in 1970 after moving from DWP to the Chief Administrative Officer’s office, their first child, David was born. Dan, Deidre and Dara were all born in the next few years rounding out the family to four children, two boys and two girls. Today, Ron is the proud grandfather of ten, eight girls and two boys.

During this period of time, Ron transferred into the Chief Legislative Analyst’s office as an analyst where he worked for eight years. Ron worked his way up in the CLA’s office to become the Cheif Legislative Analyst for the city council in 1993. It was during this time in the CLA’s office that he met and learned so much from the late John Ferraro, former president of the Los Angeles City Council. John was a gracious, strong leader who was greatly admired by all who knew him. Ron learned much about serving the public and how to get things done on behalf of the public from his friend John. It was very gratifying to Ron when the General Office Building of the Department of Water and Power was named, “The John Ferraro Building.”

Ron’s great passion was to be sure that the citizens of Los Angeles had a government which served them. He worked on everything from the 911 system to insure rapid police response time to building new parks for residents in every part of the city. He developed library services so children and adults regardless of income level would have access to learning and entertainment. Ron took a part in getting the aquarium in San Pedro renovated. Ron was instrumental in much historical restoration in the city, including the Point Fermin Lighthouse and The Pueblo. He helped restore our city’s finest buildings, most notably, City Hall. He lobbied in Sacramento and Washington to insure LA’s autonomy and to keep LA’s revenue in LA for the benefit of the citizens of LA.

Due to his untimely illness, he regretfully has announced his retirement. There was much more to be done and he would like to lead the charge to get it done. But, with gratefulness for the years he has given at city hall, he passes his city, the great City of Los Angeles on to the next generation. This city is a treasure and needs to be cared for and protected by each generation. Ron has spent his life dedicated to preserving and caring for this treasure.