Monday, June 23, 2014
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County Counsel John Krattli to Retire Next Month
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles County Counsel John Krattli has scheduled his retirement for next month.
Krattli, 61, informed the Board of Supervisors on Thursday that he will retire July 22 after less than three years in the post.
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JOHN KRATTLI Los Angeles County Counsel |
He explained in an email to his subordinates:
“It will be difficult to leave all of you and the important work that we do, but after 35 years of service, I look forward to spending more time with my grandchildren and pursuing other interests.
“I am very proud to have been a member of this Office for these past 35 years. It has been my privilege to have worked with so many bright, capable, dedicated individuals. I have learned so much from the attorneys, secretary and support staff who have assisted me throughout my career.”
Krattli was the acting chief deputy and became acting county counsel on Feb. 1, 2012 when Andrea Ordin stepped down, also after less than three years in the job. He was then officially appointed county counsel in June of that year.
In an interview published on a county website shortly after his appointment, Krattli explained that he was already considering retirement when Ordin and her chief deputy both announced they were leaving. He was named acting chief deputy in December 2011.
Military Family
The son of a U.S. Navy commander, he was born in Norfolk, Va. and raised in Japan and San Diego County. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in economics, spent a year working at the Stanford Research Institute and then entered the UCLA School of Law.
He was admitted to the State Bar in late November 1978 and started work in the general litigation division of the County Counsel’s Office five weeks later. He went on to oversee at least a half-dozen divisions of the office, and to participate in complex litigation matters, including the massive Big Rock Mesa inverse condemnation suit.
The case stemmed from a 1983 landslide above Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and lasted more than four years before the county, the state and some 240 homeowners reached a settlement.
Change of Plans
His rise up the ranks required a change of plans, he said in the interview with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s “The Insider” blog.
“I was so sure that I wasn’t going to be here long-term that when my wife and I needed money to make a down payment on a home in the early 1980s, I pulled out of the county retirement system,” he said. “I never envisioned things would turn out the way they did.”
He was made chief of the public works division in 1994, and became principal advisor to the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission, advising LAFCO during the unsuccessful Hollywood, Harbor area and San Fernando Valley secession bids in 2002.
He became senior assistant county counsel in 2003, and the county counsel’s representative on the Los Angeles County Claims Board the following year.
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