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Ellen Oppenheim told Ann Arbor officials about her experiences working for the City of Los Angeles today during a three-hour series of interviews for the city administrator job.

Oppenheim, one of two finalists, managed the Los Angeles parks and recreation department from 1999 to 2002 before moving on to San Diego. She cited her role in the creation of the CLASS program, an acronym standing for clean and safe spaces.

"One of our biggest challenges in Los Angeles was, unfortunately, a serious gang problem," she said, adding parks had been taken over by "inappropriate activities." She said she worked with the mayor and other city officials to start a new recreation programs for young people.

"We went in, we had capital dollars, modest amounts, and put in a brand-new children's play area in every one of ultimately 56 recreation centers," she said. "We had some dollars and went in and did some things to spiff up the recreation centers."

Oppenheim said the city also added a teen center in each of the recreation centers, making computers available. She also set up a program where youths could turn in points they earned to go on outings such as an L.A. Dodgers game or a performance of "The Lion King.''

"It was really an incredible program and we used that to try and bring middle-school-aged kids around, one at a time, when frankly the gangs were trying to get them," she said.

Ellen Oppenheim interviews with city officials for the Ann Arbor city administrator position today.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

She most recently held the position of president and CEO of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority from 2006 to February of this year, where she was responsible for promoting tourism and convention business in the Reno area of Nevada.

Oppenheim was asked today to talk about a creative project she worked on. She cited a new branding process to differentiate the area from the competition.

"I worked on a very strongly research-based effort for a number of months to find out what motivated visitors and what they believed was important when they made travel decisions, and what they liked about the area to develop a whole new brand, which was very fun, very exciting and different," she said, adding it came complete with an animal spokesperson.

"Which happens to be the state animal: the bighorn sheep," she said. "It's fun, it's humorous, it's definitely distinctive."

Asked about her management approach, Oppenheim said she tends to look ahead to the future and be proactive about issues that are looming.

"We first saw in December 2008 room tax numbers drop in a significant way, sort of out of the blue, seemingly, and thought, 'uh-oh — not a good sign,'" she said.

January held its own, February was fine and then March went down again, she said, so she took action and implemented a budget for the upcoming year that contracted.

"We weren't six weeks into the new fiscal year when the summer numbers started rolling in and we're down more," she said. "I said we've got to be proactive now … and so we actively in August made significant budget adjustments only a short time into the year, re-prioritized and had to eliminate some programs unfortunately — had to reduce some positions."

Council Member Tony Derezinski, D-2nd Ward, said today he's looking for a city administrator who can manage change. Police Chief Barnett Jones agreed and said the new administrator needs to be ready to meet the challenge of both economic and structural change.

"We're not in crisis, the city is not broken," Jones said. "We do need some internal and some external restructuring."

Oppenheim said she understands City Council members are elected and might make decisions that go against her recommendations. If that happens, she said, she sees it as her role to accept that and deliver on the directive from council.

"I like to hear all sides of an issue … and I want staff to feel comfortable to speak up and share their views and perspectives," she added. " ... Our role, I believe, is to put forward our best professional advice."

Asked if she regrets any decisions made during her career, Oppenheim cited an experience at the City of San Jose, where she worked from 1987 to 1996 as both the director of convention, cultural and visitor services and as assistant parks and recreation director.

She said the city operated a historical museum that had close to 100,000 visitors a year, but it was at a crossroads. She said the city had a partnership with a nonprofit organization that thought it could run the museum better and so the reins were passed off.

"The volunteers unfortunately became very disenfranchised. The staff who had been there felt undervalued and unloved and it didn't advance very much," she said. "Looking back, I think there might have been other ways to better support the organization and move it forward."

Asked what makes a good leader, Oppenheim said somebody who can motivate and inspire people, and somebody with a sense of vision.

"I've always looked at my role as kind of the orchestra leader," she said. "I have to help pick the music and the pace, obviously in conjunction with the City Council and the senior staff. Whether you're a beat officer or you're the city hall custodian or you're a recreation leader or you're a public works employee … it takes the whole group to play a symphony."

When she first arrived in Los Angeles, she said the parks department was organized in such a way that it was separated into three geographic areas. Each geographic area operated almost like its own city, she said, and the golf program was suffering from a lack of attention.

"After thinking a lot about it, talking with a lot of people … I proposed a reorganization where we put the regions together under one person whose responsibility was to find the best practices in all of those and implement them systemwide," she said. "We pulled out the golf program and made it one whole program after all, with 13 golf courses and hundreds of staff."

Asked what she would do to hit the ground running in Ann Arbor, Oppenheim said she didn't have specific ideas yet but she would quickly learn the ropes.

"The good news is this is a healthy organization. It's a fabulous community," she said. "I think the important thing I have to do initially is build the important relationships that are key to being successful, getting to understand what you on the council view as priorities, how you like to communicate, what you see as the key issues coming up."

Oppenheim said she doesn't think the city is in a crisis mode, so she sees no urgency to jump in right away and "start doing X, Y, Z."

"I need to wrap my head around the city budget and understand what does it really mean," she told the city officials interviewing her today.

Oppenheim reminded city officials that she worked for Stanford University from 1977 to 1987 in various roles, and also the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1973 to 1977.

"I think I understand something about university towns, and frankly that's a lot of what makes this attractive to me," she said. "I mean, I'm the child of two academics. I grew up in university communities and I know how special they are."

The public will have a better chance to meet the finalists at a public reception for the candidates in the Justice Center lobby at 301 E. Huron St. from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. tonight.

On Wednesday, individual candidates will participate in public presentations to the City Council in the city hall council chambers from 8 a.m. to noon. Each candidate will present for 15 minutes followed by 40 minutes for interview team questions.

The presentations will be televised on Community Television Network.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.