By Daily Press staff
The face and voice of City Hall will soon change.
It was announced this week that Mona Miyasoto will replace Judy Franz as City Hall’s spokesperson when Franz retires at the end of August.
With more than 200 resumes submitted for the position, city officials were able to narrow down a small pool of candidates who were then extensively interviewed by two panels consisting of senior staff, a local newspaper editor and a community activist.
After the panel interviews, Franz learned that Miyasoto, who has been on a one-year leave from the City Manager’s Office while serving as acting human services manager, might be interested in taking on the community relations assignment rather than returning to her former role in management operations.
Miyasoto has accepted an appointment to the position of Assistant to the City Manager, Community Relations, effective Sept. 12. She will build on the work Franz has done for the past nine years, taking the city’s community relations efforts to the next level.
Miyasoto graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley with a dual degree in political science and economics, although her goal was to establish a career in journalism. She was a staff writer for the Daily Californian, the Cal student newspaper, and held internships at the San Francisco Chronicle and at the Washington, D.C. bureau of NBC News.
Because of its press and politics program, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University was Miyasoto’s choice for graduate school. While at the Kennedy School, she was sidetracked from journalism and graduated with a master’s degree in public policy, with an emphasis on community development, which led her to jobs in environmental planning with a Los Angeles-based consulting firm and housing and redevelopment positions.
Miyasoto worked in resource management as a senior administrative analyst for two years before coming to the City Manager’s office in 2000 as Assistant to the City Manager, management operations. Her assignment as acting human services manager for the past year has found her deeply involved in major issues facing Santa Monica, principally homelessness and gang violence prevention, often serving as city spokesperson with the media and in public forums on the issues. According to Franz, Miyasoto has a well-rounded knowledge of city operations and policy, municipal finance, housing and redevelopment, grants management and social services.
Miyasoto will lead the community information division of the manager’s office, which includes cable TV, publications, City Hall reception, media relations, customer service, community outreach, neighborhood organization liaison and crisis communication.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 28, 2006. Read the original PDF.