Mayor Selects Administrator at UCLA for Education Post

Signaling his continued commitment to making education a priority of his second term, Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan on Tuesday appointed a high-ranking UCLA administrator to replace Helen Bernstein as a senior advisor.

Bernstein, the former teachers’ union head, was struck and killed by a car last month. The new advisor is Ted Mitchell, a nationally renowned education expert who is UCLA’s vice chancellor for academic planning and budget and a special assistant to the university’s chancellor.

“He is a proven educational and community leader--passionate, caring and experienced,” Riordan said in a written statement. “I look forward to working with him as we strive to provide the children of Los Angeles the tools to compete in Los Angeles and beyond.”

Mitchell, who will work for the mayor for free, is on a leave of absence from his post as dean of UCLA’s graduate school of education and information studies. In academic research, he has explored the history of educational organizations, focusing on how they respond to change. Mitchell has also been active in many civic organizations, including LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now).

“I share [Riordan’s] dedication to education and I am confident that we will work in concert with educators, students, parents, faculty members and the community to find ways to give young Angelenos a better education,” Mitchell said in a news release. “I look forward to building on the partnerships that have emerged throughout the city and which Helen Bernstein initiated on behalf of children.”

Along with Mitchell’s appointment, Riordan’s office also named two new commissioners Tuesday, the first in a long list of nominations that will help define the mayor’s second term.

The terms of about 25 of the city’s more than 200 citizen commissioners will expire in coming months. There are at least a dozen additional vacancies, and City Hall sources say the mayor will also be replacing several key commissioners midterm.

On Tuesday, Riordan nominated Marvin R. Selter to the Board of Zoning Appeals and Alejandro Padilla to the Building and Safety Commission.

Selter, who lives in Studio City, is the founder and chairman of the board of the National Staff Network, which provides employee benefits programs to client companies.

Padilla works for state Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) and lives in Pacoima.