Our new man in Sacramento

For more than a decade, Los Angeles County’s point man in Sacramento has been one of the oldest hands in the state capitol. When Dan Wall announced his retirement late last year as the top lobbyist for the county, he was capping a 37-year resume that dates to Ronald Reagan’s gubernatorial administration. Wall isn’t joking when he says he’s been lobbying since the first time Jerry Brown was governor.

So filling his shoes was no easy task, says Assistant Chief Executive Officer Ryan Alsop. “We searched for months and months.”  And Alsop found his man just in time for a budget season that promises to be of historic importance.

Alan Fernandes, come on down.

Fernandes, a 36-year-old lawyer and father of two from Davis, comes to the county from the well-known Sacramento law firm of Nielsen, Merksamer, where he has represented public sector clients for nearly 10 years.

With a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Davis and his law degree from the McGeorge School of Law at University of the Pacific, he is currently the lobbyist for San Diego, Riverside, Contra Costa and Marin counties. He also has served on the Business and Economic Development Commission for the City of Davis, where he not only helped turn the city’s collection of rare and antique bicycles into the California Bicycle Museum, but also helped the city land the formerly New Jersey-based U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame.

“Alan will be a great asset to the county in Sacramento,” said Alsop, who lauded Fernandes’ “honesty, knowledge, great work ethic and communications skill.”

 And he’s going to need every ounce of that talent.

With California facing a $25.4 billion budget gap, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed transferring the cost of many services from the state government to the counties, offering local governments more autonomy, but also potentially leaving them with much greater financial obligations that might not be underwritten in the long term.

Los Angeles County, for example, has estimated that Brown’s realignment plan could force it to absorb many millions of dollars in new costs and overwhelm the county’s already over-crowded jail system.

“I think we’re at a point where the restructuring of the state and local relationship is needed,” Fernandes said, speaking by phone between capitol meetings. “If it’s done right, it can actually serve the residents of California a lot better. But if done wrong, it could actually set us back even further—if that’s even imaginable.”

Fernandes called the most recent election “one of the most important in California since Proposition 13. “The results are going to put us in situations via realignment that could restructure government,” he said. “I applied for this job because I want to be a part of that.”

But, he added, he also applied because Los Angeles County is in a class by itself as a player in Sacramento. “Los Angeles is a third of the state, at least.”

That’s high praise coming from a Northern Californian. In the interest of full disclosure, however, Fernandes did admit one potentially serious conflict:

“I’m going to be completely up-front,” he confessed, laughing. “I’m a big San Francisco Giants fan.”

The appointment to the $175,000 a year post is expected to become official on February 10. After a transitional period, Wall, 64, will finally retire.

“I have projects,” said Wall, who, in true county fashion, lives in unincorporated Sacramento County. “I have a 1961 Triumph TR 3, a little red sports car, and I’m going to put that in working order. I’m going to do a little wine cellar at home because I like wine. I want to play the guitar. And we want to go to Italy, my wife and I. I think after 37 years working in this process, it’s time for a little change of view.”