Business Team Will Get New Name, Focus By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter Mayor James Hahn will be changing his business team to put a greater emphasis on the city’s housing shortage and its impact on companies, city officials said. Hahn is expected to announce May 27 that he is changing the name to the city’s Business/Housing Team and he and Jonathan Kevles, deputy mayor of economic development and other members of the economic development team are expected to lay out details of the plan. The business team, currently a 19-member panel of city-appointed planners, advisors and business experts, was formed under Hahn’s predecessor, Richard Riordan, to study the needs of businesses across the county and target initiatives for development, financing, streamlining the permit process and improving access to city services. Kevles has been officially heading the team since the departure of its previous director, Susan Klein, who was named executive director for the Los Angeles office of New Schools/Better Neighborhoods in January. The planned changes got initial lukewarm reaction from Valley economic officials. David Fleming, chairman of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said he saw little logic in combining the two departments. He suggested that any efforts to woo businesses to the Valley or retain existing ones by offering workers better housing options, would be ineffective without real changes in the permitting process or its business tax system. “I’m not sure that combining business and housing makes any sense,” said Fleming. “There is a shortage, but this city has been so anti-business for so long, that to dilute the efforts (on business tax reform) just to try to retain and solicit new business for this area, I just see as ineffective. Housing is important and clearly is going to be a problem, but they need to attack both issues with gusto, and not just say, ‘OK, we’ve tackled business, now let’s look at housing.”‘