Meet the Staff
 Sylvia Drew Ivie Chief of Staff Sylvia Drew Ivie most recently worked as a consultant to The California Endowment, advising on disparities in health including better nutrition in low-income communities and assessment of the crisis around King Drew Medical Center, when Supervisor Ridley-Thomas tapped her to be his Chief of Staff. MORE
Until February, 2005, Ms. Drew Ivie was Executive Director of the T.H.E. (To Help Everyone) Clinic, a primary health care clinic that provides health services to minority and immigrant women and families in South Central and Southwest Los Angeles. Her 100-member staff successfully served patients in ten languages. Her legal experiences include serving as Deputy City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles, practicing poverty and civil rights law for the National Health Law Program in Los Angeles, Assistant Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York, and the Director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. during the Carter administration. A graduate of Vassar College with a degree in political science and a law degree from Howard University School of Law, Ms. Drew Ivie is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1994 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.
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Reviving L.A. Hospital Is Personal (Los Angeles Daily Journal) |
 Vincent Harris Senior Advisor and Special Assistant Vincent Harris has served in a variety of administrative, policy and political capacities over the course of his public service career. As Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ former Chief of Staff during his tenure in the State Legislature, Mr. Harris provides policy continuity and broad understanding MORE
of the State’s budgetary and legislative processes to the Second District staff. During the 2008 Presidential Primary, Mr. Harris served as Deputy State Director of Barack Obama’s California campaign. Prior to working for Ridley-Thomas, Mr. Harris was Deputy Chief of Staff for California Governor Gray Davis. He also served as Senior Policy Advisor and Chief of Staff for the late Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald (37th District) when she served in the U.S. House of Representatives and California State Assembly. Raised in the Second District, the Los Angeles native earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in history from UCLA. Responsibilities:
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 Randi Tahara Senior Deputy for Board Operations Randi Tahara has extensive experience in the field of criminal justice and public safety serving as a Supervisor’s Deputy for the past 14 years. Ms. Tahara currently serves as the Supervisor’s Board Deputy where she is charged with ensuring smooth and effective operations at the weekly MORE
Board meetings. Additionally, she serves as the Arts Deputy and as a liaison to the Asian Pacific Islander communities. Responsibilities:
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 Dan Rosenfeld Senior Deputy for Economic Development, Sustainability and Mobility The co-founder of Urban Partners LLC, an award-winning entrepreneurial real estate firm focusing on development and investment opportunities in the western United States, Mr. Rosenfeld helped the firm earn its reputation as a nationally recognized leader in urban infill, mixed-use and transit-oriented MORE
development, and adaptive re-use of historical structures.
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 Yolanda Vera Senior Deputy for Healthcare Services and Advocacy Yolanda Vera has an extensive background in civil rights with a dedicated focus on health related matters. Her legal work included positions with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the National Health Law Program, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Most recently as the Director of MORE
LA Health Action, a California Endowment-funded non-profit dedicated to improving the health of low-income Los Angeles County communities, Ms. Vera took the lead to preserve and improve healthcare throughout Los Angeles. Ms. Vera has served as a board member of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California and the Child Health Initiative of Greater Los Angeles. She was previously appointed by Los Angeles City Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the Board of Civil Service Commissioners. A resident of Los Angeles, Ms. Vera earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English from Loyola Marymount University, and a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from the UCLA School of Law. Responsibilities:
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 Richard P. Fajardo Senior Deputy for Justice and Public Safety Issues Richard Fajardo has extensive experience in civil rights law, litigation and advocacy. As an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), he was the lead counsel in a 1990 voting rights case that resulted in a court-ordered redrawing of supervisorial districts in MORE
Los Angeles County. In his most recent job, he was an attorney in private practice in Los Angeles. Besides his civil litigation experience, including more than 16 years of experience in corporate and business litigation, Mr. Fajardo has extensive experience in legislative advocacy. He has represented candidates in election recounts and other election law matters. His numerous awards include the Pro Bono Legal Services Award from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Cruz Reynoso Award from the Mexican Bar Association. Mr. Fajardo earned Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts degrees in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also received a law degree from UCLA. Responsibilities:
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 Peter Hong Senior Deputy for Agency Review and Support Peter Hong joins the supervisor’s staff from the Los Angeles Times, where he worked for 15 years of his 20-year journalism career. Hong’s commitment to the Second District began in 1994, when he joined the staff of the paper’s City Times section, formed after the 1992 civil unrest to serve the communities of central and south Los Angeles. MORE
As a reporter for the Times’ Metro staff, Hong’s work penetrated the complexity of race relations and the cultural identity of Los Angeles, illuminating both tragedies and triumphs. He wrote on the broader social conditions underlying such problems as hate crimes in Hawaiian Gardens and violence between black and Latino students at Locke High School. He also wrote features on Los Angeles-area success stories like the renaissance of the West Adams neighborhood and phenomenal national success of locally produced sriracha hot sauce. Hong has written numerous Op-Ed and analytical pieces on education, economics, foreign affairs, environmental policy and was the lead Times reporter on the Phil Spector murder trial. His final beat for the Times was as a Business reporter, covering the housing crash and foreclosure crisis. His frequent front-page stories correctly reported both the bursting of the housing bubble and the market’s recent bottom. Of his new position, Hong said: “Supervisor Ridley-Thomas is a public intellectual in the truest sense, someone with ambitious ideas who is able to turn them into real policies that improve lives for all, including some of those with the deepest needs. Working with him provides an opportunity to build on the knowledge I’ve gained working as a reporter in his district to hopefully take on some of the nation’s most daunting public policy challenges.” Hong will serve in the capacity of Senior Deputy for Agency Review and Support, which will strategically draw on his broad background across a range of policy areas. Prior to joining the Times, Hong was a reporter for the Washington Post and the Washington bureau of Business Week magazine. He began his career as a Desk Assistant in the Washington Bureau of ABC News. Hong graduated from Occidental College with a degree in politics in 1987. He was a Thomas J. Watson fellow in Korea and Poland in 1987-1988. He has been a national board member of the Asian American Journalists Association and a trustee of Occidental College. Responsibilities:
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 Dorinne Jordan Senior Deputy for Budget Accountability and Advocacy Dorinne Jordan joined the office of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas in February of 2009 as the Second Supervisorial District’s Budget Deputy. In this role, she is responsible for all aspects of the budget including policy development, budget implementation, and the development of plans for MORE
reallocation of funds. Ms. Jordan also acts as his liaison to all County departments on budgetary matters. Ms. Jordan comes to the Second District with significant private and public financial and budgetary experience. For three years she leant her expertise to private developer Newhall Land as their Senior Financial Analyst where she managed financial models for land valued at $6 billion. Prior to working at Newhall Land, Ms. Jordan worked as a budget analyst for the County’s Chief Administrative Office, now known as the Chief Executive Office, and was responsible for budget development and management for eight County departments valued at more than $400 million. Responsibilities:
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 Aurelio Rojas Senior Deputy for Communications Aurelio Rojas worked for more than three decades as a print newspaper reporter, specializing in social, economic and political issues. He most recently spent a decade covering the Legislature for the Sacramento Bee. Before that, he wrote about immigration and welfare reform for the San Francisco Chronicle. MORE
He most recently spent a decade covering the Legislature for the Sacramento Bee. Before that, he wrote about immigration and welfare reform for the San Francisco Chronicle. During his journalism career, Mr. Rojas won several awards while reporting from every region of the United States and many foreign countries. He is no stranger to the County Hall of Administration, having covered the Board of Supervisors for United Press International and Copley News Service from 1988 to 1993. Mr. Rojas was raised in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles. He graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and was a Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 1998-99. Responsibilities:
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