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Board of Supervisors appoints Brence Culp as interim county CEO

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The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday appointed Brence Culp to act as the county’s chief executive officer until a permanent replacement can be found for retiring CEO William Fujioka.

Culp, the chief deputy CEO, has served in the executive office since June 2009. She has spent more than a decade in public service for the city and county of Los Angeles, working with the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee and spending three years as the CFO for Los Angeles’ Redevelopment Agency, among other roles.

The 47-year-old lawyer also spent five years on Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s staff, focusing on the county budget.

Culp practiced corporate tax and real estate law before her transition to local government. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and went to law school at New York University.

Fujioka is retiring after nearly four decades as a public servant. He was appointed the county’s first CEO in 2007, shortly after he had retired from eight years as city administrative officer for the City of Los Angeles. Honored by the board, Fujioka said his first public sector job was during college at UC Santa Cruz, where he worked as a custodian, a post that taught him some hard lessons.

“When you’re at that level, you’re all but invisible,” Fujioka said.

But it takes everyone, from the front office to the back, to make a difference, the CEO said.

“What we do saves lives,” Fujioka told the board and assembled employees.

He urged anyone who wants to better understand the county’s work to “go to a waiting room” at a county hospital or social services office or any other administrative office and “look at the people who depend on us.

“The magic of public service is helping the people in that waiting room,” he said.

Culp will take over for Fujioka effective Dec. 1, as the board continues its efforts to recruit a long-term CEO.

Fuijoka’s departure is just one of many executive-level changes, as the county’s top attorney and public health director also retired this year. Term limits are also reshaping the board, as supervisors-elect Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis will be sworn in Dec. 1 to seats long held by supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina. Sheriff-elect Jim McDonnell and assessor-elect Jeffrey Prang will take office the same day.

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