Bradley Chooses Environmental Affairs Manager

Mayor Tom Bradley on Friday appointed Lillian Kawasaki, a Los Angeles Harbor Department employee, to head the city’s new Department of Environmental Affairs.

Kawasaki, 39, is the first Asian-American department chief in the city’s history, Bradley said. Kawasaki, of Fountain Valley, has worked for the Harbor Department since 1978, beginning as a port environmental scientist.

The department, created last spring over Bradley’s opposition, will have an initial annual budget of $1 million and a staff of 20. Kawasaki’s salary will be $82,000 a year.

Bradley opposed creation of the department out of fear it would set off turf wars between departments, many of which have some responsibility for environmental matters.

Bradley said Friday that Kawasaki will be the city’s “principal educator” on environmental matters. “We hope to have her deliver the message to the public so that they will get involved in the efforts of the 1990s as we engage in a vigorous environmental program in the city of Los Angeles.

“She has worked with many of the city agencies and that is going to be one of her assignments,” Bradley said. “We hope that this cooperative effort is going to give us the best attack on the problems that confront us.”

She will be the first Asian-American to be appointed general manager of a department, although others have served as acting bureau heads, the mayor said.

Kawasaki is not well-known among environmentalists.

Robert Sulnick, executive director of the American Oceans Campaign who strongly endorsed creation of the new city office, said he was not familiar with Kawasaki. He said he had hoped that a well-known environmentalist would be named to the post.

“None of us were asked or included in the process that I’m aware of,” Sulnick said. “But, I’m not trying to be negative. This may be a wonderful appointment. I simply don’t know, but I have great hope for the agency.”

Mary Nichols, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council offices in Los Angeles, said, “She’s as good a choice as you could have found within the city family.” Nichols said Kawasaki was picked from among several candidates “based on her abilities as an environmental manager, as opposed to being an environmental advocate.” Nichols agreed that few in the environmental movement know much about Kawasaki.

Nichols said the city Harbor Department appears to have avoided environmental suits and been more sensitive to environmental concerns since Kawasaki was named director of environmental management for the port in April, 1988.

In that job she focused on the impact harbor activities have on air and ocean water quality as well as the surrounding land area, according to the mayor’s office.

For the last five years, she has managed the environmental program relating to the Harbor Department’s expansion, including plans to mitigate the effects of expansion on wetlands areas.

Kawasaki said the new department will coordinate city environmental measures and “guide, support and really strengthen the city commitment to improving the citizens’ quality of life.”

“There are a lot of very good efforts under way to address our environmental quality,” she said. “This department is not meant to duplicate them, they’re meant to enhance them.

She said she does not know whether her department will be involved in policing other departments.

Kawasaki has a BS degree in zoology and an MS degree in biology from Cal State Los Angeles.