Rita Robinson-Kane, legendary LA public employee, tells tales in her first post-retirement interview.

Photos by Summy Lam, Club COO; from the Alive! archives, and courtesy Rita Robinson-Kane

S

he quotes Hamilton to describe her City of LA career: She was in the room where it happened.

• Was she ever: Once a General Manager. Twice an Interim General Manager. Once a Bureau Director.

• And once Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the largest County in the United States.

• She was – and is – friend of mayors, Councilmembers, national leaders, community organizers and countless others.

• She’s a longtime passionate Club Member and twice a Club Board Member.

• She is living history: Rita Robinson-Kane was responsible for many big and successful projects in the City and County.

And she has stories. And in this Alive!-exclusive interview, Rita is ready to tell them.

Rita, retired from the City since 2010 and fully since 2018, could be considered an insider’s insider, but that would neglect her strong rapport with everyday City employees who weren’t on the inside, too. She was a supporter of anyone who matched her passion for excellence and honesty.

Make sure to read our exclusive interview with Rita. And then don’t miss part two of Rita’s interview next month in an intriguing follow-up.

 

On Jan. 10, Club CEO Robert Larios and Alive! editor John Burnes interviewed the legendary Rita Robinson-Kane, Retired, General Manager, LADOT, and Retired, Deputy CEO, LA County. She retired from the City in 2011 with 33 years of City service, and from the County in 2018 with seven years of County service.

Rita is a Club Member and serves on the Club Board.

Diet Coke

Alive!: Welcome Rita, it’s so good to have you here to tell your stories.

Rita L. Robinson-Kane: Thank you for inviting me! I’m a little nervous, actually – you are asking me to look back 47 years!

I am. First things first, though … do you want to remove your Diet Coke for the photos? And set it to the side?

Rita: Oh, no! I take it everywhere. I always took it to the Council meetings and other meetings. I knew the meeting was bad if I had a two-Coke meeting.

So it would be out of place for it to not be front and center.

Rita: It would be. Somebody was always waiting for me with a Diet Coke. It’s almost always in my veins. It was my safety net.

So it will stay, then!

Retirement 

Excellent. How’s your retirement? Are you enjoying it?

Rita: Yes. It’s wonderful to not have the restrictions of time to be here, to be there, to be at every meeting. There really is a wonderful amount of freedom involved. I like the amount of freedom.

How are you spending your days? 

Rita: These days it looks like the leisure of life. I’m not a big traveler. I’ve not taken many trips. My happy place is Las Vegas. That’s where I go most often, maybe to see a show or something. Or just to relax there because the Wynn Hotel is my second residence, or as my staff used to call it, Ritaville. If I ever win the lottery or something, I would have a residency at the Wynn Hotel. I’ve been going there for years and I love it.

Do you gamble? 

Rita: Some. I treat the penny slot machines like video games. I’m no big gambler, but I like the fun of it. It relaxes me.

Is this the retirement that you planned on, or is it surprising you? 

Rita: When I first retired, I was still taking care of Michael [her late husband] when he was ill at the time. So my time was really spent making sure he was okay. I was going to Phoenix a lot to check on him and come back. My retirement was wrapped around him. And once he passed, it was more like an empty space of what to do. I really wasn’t sure at that time what to do. That’s when I decided that I needed a rest, so I took one. I decided to not worry about anything and just rest.

I don’t think I had a lot of expectations from retirement other than to get out of my career alive, which was important because in the upper echelons of what you do at a management level, it can sometimes be daunting. To get out alive, through the political climate and all the things that can happen, you want to do good work. All of those things were nipping at my heels.

When I looked down and realized I had served 40 years to the City and County, I said it was time to go.

City Origins and Lessons Learned

Was Community Development your first City department? 

Rita: Yes. It was under the Mayor’s Office then. I had been a summer worker for two summers prior to that. One of the supervisors asked me to apply for a job there. I wasn’t really thinking about the City because I was just coming out of college. At that time, college was like management training for banks. I wanted to be in these corporations. Security Pacific Bank was recruiting for management.

I was raised by my grandparents in Festus, Missouri, outside St. Louis until I was 11. I was talking to my grandfather when I was in college. “Corporations are nice,” he said. “But they lay off people because business goes up and business goes down. I think you should look into some of the government opportunities, especially since you worked for the City for two summers. That’s not a bad opportunity,” he explained, “because they never solve any problems [permanently], so they will always be in business.” I thought, well, that’s kind of an odd way of looking at it. But he said, “I guarantee you, you may not get as much money to start, but you have unlimited opportunity. And eventually you will make the kind of money that you think you want to make. You need to make only enough money to take care of yourself. But they have health benefits and things that I want you to have.” So that’s how I ended up eventually going to the City.

How did he know so much about City life and City work? 

Rita: He lived to be 103, so he had seen a lot of life. Even though I often tell people that my grandparents probably had the culmination of an eighth-grade education together, they had numerous PhDs in life. They raised me to be able to handle life. And he said, life means you take care of yourself. You make sure you have a roof over your head. You make sure you have a car to drive or bus fare if you don’t have a car, and food to eat. I told him that the City was paying like $300 less a month than I would get at the bank. And he said that he could guarantee I was going to make that up and more in the time to come. In the end, I got a City job, and that’s where I started.

 

What was your first title? 

Rita: Oh, goodness. I can’t remember! It wasn’t even Management Assistant. It was like City Coordinator, because it was under the Mayor’s Office. It wasn’t even a City title. It was more like a title that the City used for exempt employees. Eventually I did become a Management Assistant with the City. The Community Development Dept. handled grants and housing issues and other community needs that were identified.

Were you excited to get your first job? 

Rita: Initially I was terrified of my first boss, Clarence Broussard. It was Earl Jones who advised me to work for the City. He was just the greatest guy ever. Just the sweetest man.

My first interview was with Clarence Broussard. I’d never met him. He didn’t even ask me to sit down. I waited for him to ask me to sit down. He didn’t ask, so I stood. He mentioned that I went to Scripps College in Claremont and that he went to Claremont Men’s College. At least they taught you how to read and write, he said. His head was still down.

He said, it looks like you did a good job the two summers you were here. Can you come to work on time? And I said, yes, sir. He said, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 7 a.m.” I just walked out and went home. Five minutes, and that was that. I don’t even know what he looked like! 

My grandmother told me to be at work at 6:30 a.m., a half-hour early. Which I did. Clarence appreciated that I came to work early. From then on, we became the best of co-workers and friends. He worked hard, and he gave me so much opportunity. That set my framework for working life.

He became part of your support circle? 

Rita: Absolutely. My support came from my grandparents and my church family, mainly. My grandma did housework for important people in town like the librarian, the sheriff, and others. As a child a lot of times, I’d go to work with her. She taught me how to work carefully, thoroughly. Once, when I was in a hurry, I did a poor job and hadn’t taken the time to do it right. “There’s something I need to tell you,” my grandma said. “When you work for people, people are paying you to do a job, and they expect a good job. Otherwise, they don’t want you to work for them. Nobody likes anything that’s less than excellent.” I cried and cried and cried, and she said, “No, dry those tears. There’s nothing to cry about. You did a poor job. You own it. You’re still going to get ice cream, but I don’t want you to ever do that again. We all make mistakes. Lesson learned.” I never forgot that when you’re doing anything for anybody, whether you’re being paid for it or not, do it with a lot of excellence and a lot of love. The connection between excellence, goodness and love makes your life better, and others, too.

 

Taking Tests, an Ultimatum, and Onto CAO

After Community Development, your next stop was the CAO – the City Administrative Officer department.

Rita: I wanted to stay at Community Development, but the mood in the City was always to take as many tests as you could. Every position would have its own test. A lot of my friends were taking any tests they could qualify for. It was important to get through the process of testing, to go to Hollywood High School, know where to park, stand in line, and understand the proctor system and the timing of taking a test. I took tests on so many Saturdays for jobs that I had no interest in. If I qualified, I would take the test just to get the feeling of taking a test. And when a real test came around, I would be able to qualify for it. Over time I was able to move up and into the civil service system within Community Development.

People didn’t get out of CDD very often into the real City for a long time; it was out of the Mayor’s Office, and people didn’t consider us to be City employees, really. Frank Martinez was the first person I remember who got out and went to a City department, and it was a big deal. I went to Housing for a little bit. I became a Senior, and then I took the test for the CAO’s Office. Barbara Ziedman had encouraged me to take the Sr. Administrative Analyst test. Eventually that’s how I ended up at the CAO’s Office. It was not an easy road, but I got there.

Yeah. How long were you at the CAO’s Office? 

Rita: It had to be several years because I had so many different assignments. I became a Budget Analyst over Sanitation for a long time.

That would serve you later.

Rita: Yes. That parlayed me into becoming the Director. I really understood the City in the CAO’s Office. Community Development was like a little arm, but you were at the heart pulse of the City at the CAO’s Office, then under Mr. Keith Comrie. It was truly where everything flowed in and out of the City even beyond the Council; the CAO set the stage for everything. Most people never got into the CAO’s Office; it was more like an Old Boys’ Club. And very few minorities.

A representative of the RAND Corporation was on the interview panel for the Chief Administrative Analyst interview. The CAO’s Office wanted top-notch people interviewing for their jobs. He said, “You’re applying for a pretty high-level position as a Chief in the CAO’s Office.” He said it’s about leadership and it sets the tone for the City. He then asked me, “If you’re the leader, why should anybody follow you?” It was a profound question to ask me. It really hit me. I remembered the trick: To buy time, repeat the question within the answer. So I repeated it and then said, “People follow the examples of what they see. If you work with excellence, you do all the things you’re supposed to do at get results. You lead with integrity and trust so that people want to follow you.” He shook his head. And I got within the top-tier scores.

Were you ambitious at that time? Was this about the point in your career where you said to yourself, I’m going places and I’m showing my worth at an early stage?

Rita: There were more people telling me that than I was telling myself. My supervisor at the time was Barbara Zeidman. She was head of Housing at the time, and eventually became head of Personnel. She was so smart. She said, “I’ve been watching you.” She tutored me over time. She told me it was time for me to go work for the CAO’s Office. She drove me to the interview for the Chief. I didn’t even want to get out of the car! I told her I didn’t think I could do this, to interview for the CAO position. She said she would fire me from the City if I didn’t get out of the car! “You have important work to do,” she said. “Go in there and do your best!” It went well, and I was stunned. I’d never had an interview that focused more on who you were as a person rather than the mechanics of the job.

It was that important of a job.

Rita: At that time my grandmother was very sick. I didn’t believe I could start a new job. I ended up interviewing and they told me I was going to be working for a man named George Wolfberg. He understood my needs and still made sure I succeeded. He said that I was going to fit in just fine there. He said I had thick skin, and I was going to need it in the CAO’s Office for the political environment I was in.

I learned to write for the City from George. I would turn in reports, and I was proud of them. I was assisting Building and Safety at the time. When I turned in the report, he gave it back to me. George was one of those people who didn’t look at you. “Try again,” he wrote at the top. He said, “You can’t make me believe your outcome if the body of your report doesn’t support the conclusion. You can’t write your conclusions first and then expect me to have a leap of faith into what you’ve written. All the facts have to line up so that I can come to this conclusion practically. This is not an assumption job. Also, if you can’t wrap me up in three paragraphs, you fail.”

So then I began to write better and better and better.

Later, you applied for the top position there, right?

Rita: Yes, but I didn’t get a top position at the CAO’s Office. Mr. Comrie called me in later and said he knew I was disappointed I didn’t one of the 10 appointments. But he made sure that I would get a Chief Management Analyst position at Housing. “I think you’ll go further if you’re in the departmental land than if you’re in the CAO’s Office. Your leadership here can only go so far, but this opens you up to opportunities in the entire City.” I said okay. I wasn’t upset about it. It was a hard pill for people to swallow. There was already talk about lawsuits. But I’m not a person to sue the hand that feeds me. That’s not me. I said, things will work out. That’s where faith plays a role. I prayed about it, and I remembered what my grandfather said: There’s no whining. “God doesn’t always give us what we want,” he said. Sometimes what we want is not the best for us, and sometimes the answer is no. He said he wanted me to smile like I’ve never smiled before. Go over there and do the best job you ever could do.

That’s what I did; I went to Housing. In hindsight, it was the best opportunity because from Housing I went to Rec and Parks, where I worked for one of my favorite people in the whole world, John Duggan. As I moved through the departments, I went from tutor to tutor to tutor. They were all tough! They were people of excellence.

 

Rec and Parks, Housing And Unique Wallpaper

So now you’re in Housing.

Rita: Housing was brief the first time. It was a contentious time in Housing; they were making room for a new guy to come in. From there I went to Rec and Parks. I learned good things about how that department worked.

One day while I was there, my boss – John Duggan – took me to this restaurant for lunch. I might have been at Rec and Parks a year or so at that point. 

In the restaurant, there was this lady sitting at a table. Just one person. She started waving, and I thought it was for John. “She’s waving at you,” he told me. So I went over. Her name was Frances Banerjee; she was a bigwig in the City. [She had been Assistant Chief Legislative Analyst with the City, and was then the General Manager of LADOT. – Ed.] She said, “You’re going to come work for me.” “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t even know you,” I said. “There’s going to be a job opening for Assistant Director of Transportation, and I want you to apply,” she said. “You have the qualifications. Do the best job you can on the application and drop it off at Personnel.” I was stunned by her. I didn’t feel I was ready for that. But at a meeting she had seen me standing strong on a point I was making, and she was impressed, John told me later.

I got the job at LADOT; I was Frankee’s Assistant Director there. And then I became Interim General Manager when she left. Frankee Banerjee remains a cherished friend to this day.

That was your first time at LADOT.

Rita: Right. While I was Interim at LADOT, they picked Wayne Tanda to be the General Manager.

I stayed as Assistant for a while. And then Tim McOsker, who is now a Councilmember – back then he was the Chief of Staff for Mayor James Hahn – called and asked me to consider going back to Housing and be the Interim for Housing. And I said, after all that I went through to get out of Housing! He said, it would be the best vindication ever!

The Housing staff was amazed I was coming back. The Housing staff, who had worked with me in rent control and risk stabilization efforts, pasted multiple copies of the official press release all over the wall of the office of the staff person who had made my first stint there so difficult. I thought that was one of the funniest things that had ever happened! It was hilarious.

I called into my office the person who had given me problems before, and I said, “Call me anything you want. Call me any name you want. Don’t say it under your breath. Say it out loud, to my face, and then we can move on.” This person apologized, and then we moved on and had an excellent working relationship. I don’t hold grudges. This person didn’t either. The mayor would ask me every once in a while through Tim if it was going well. And I said yes, it was. It was all good.

But still Interim.

Rita: Right. I got used to sitting like a Munchkin in that big yellow chair in the Mayor’s Office! Then they hired a new Housing General Manager.

 

Sanitation  and New Fees

Rita: Tim called after that, and said the mayor had two General Manager positions that he wanted me to apply for – Sanitation and Rec and Parks. They would be permanent this time. No more Interim.

The mayor said I had done an excellent job being an Analyst for Sanitation, and I had also done a good job at Rec and Parks. I said it would be monumentally historic if I applied for Sanitation within Public Works, because nobody would ever expect that. And the mayor liked doing things no one expected. I knew everybody there already.

You would be the first non-Engineer, African-American woman to lead Sanitation.

Rita: Yes.

And that’s what you did.

Rita: Yes.

Then from there you went back to LADOT.

Rita: I was at Sanitation when Mayor [Antonio] Villaraigosa came in. I had a lot of respect and care for him, I really did, because he was courageous. He had all the GMs write a letter to tell him why they should stay in their appointment – every new Mayor has a right to rename any General Manager. So I wrote a letter and said if you really want to make a difference in this City, you’re going to have to impose a new collection fee, which had been talked about since 1952, the year I was born. I had every file from the CAO’s Office on why we had to institute a trash collection fee. Not raise one, but institute one. We were hanging by a thread. To do some of the things that were coming – recycling, new trucks, and all kinds of things, we didn’t have the budget for it. We tried instituting one a few years before. I knew the history. But it was the time I felt the mayor could institute one.

So I sent the letter, and one of his staff, Marcus Allen, called me in and said, you have a lot of audacity writing a letter like this to the mayor! I said it was not disrespectful, it was factual. I have a big thing about peer review. I’m not the smartest kid in the room and I’ve always hired people who were way smarter than me. I asked my peer group to look at the letter and they tweaked it, but at that point I either had a job or I didn’t. I couldn’t lie to him.

Marcus, who was brilliant, got his own peer group to look at it. He said, if we could say the money’s going to police and then siphon some of it back to Sanitation, that’s how we can cover ourselves. That was a political thought. I have no political mind at all. He sold it to Mayor Villaraigosa, who loved it. Then we packaged it and sold it.

Effective.

Rita: That was when I saw the clever political side of a city. When you have really clever people who are also personable and smart, not ruthless, and able to make a sale, that’s impressive. Villaraigosa became such a salesman.

You were right in the middle of it.

Rita: Like in Hamilton when they said, you’re in the room where it happens. I was in the room where it happened so many times, but not always when decisions were made that I felt were right. Sometimes I was sorry I was in the room. I had enough goodwill with mayors and other leaders I worked with that I could say, maybe you shouldn’t go down this road. Personally or professionally. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn’t. One politician once told me there would come a day when he could no longer hear my voice of reason.

Last City Stop: Back to LADOT

And from Sanitation you went back to LADOT. 

Rita: I’m trying to remember what happened! Oh okay … Marcus from the Mayor’s Office put his arm around my shoulder and said, “I’ve got bad news.” I said, “Oh God, what now?” He said, “The mayor wants you to go back over to Transportation.” I said, “And leave Sanitation? After all we’ve done?” Also, I wasn’t eager to go back to the complicated Department of Transportation. It wasn’t my favorite, to say the least. “The mayor needs you to make room for this,” he said.

I was sad when I told my poor staff; it just broke my heart. When I met with the mayor, I told him the only way I’d do this willingly or even halfway willingly is if he let me help him name the person to take over Sanitation, so that the staff was not left in the lurch. The Hyperion Treatment Plant redevelopment and everything else that we were doing was so vital. And he let me. The new Director was Enrique Zaldivar, the best person at that time I knew to transition to Director, even though he was expecting a new baby at the time. The staff needed a leader to not rip them apart. It was better for the City that way.

So you took over as General Manager at LADOT. And then you were out – LA County came calling, and you Retired from the City from that position. Was it because of the nature of the job, or you had enough years served? Why did you decide to retire from the City?

Rita: I was lured out.

Tell that story please!  

 

Coming in April
Part Two of Alive!’s exclusive interview with City Legend Rita Robinson-Kane:

Her transition to the top of LA County … the promising future of Los Angeles … her strong belief in the mission  of the Employees Club, and much more: Don’t miss it!