Top Garcetti aide leaves City Hall to campaign for L.A. 2024 Olympic bid

A senior aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti has left City Hall to work for the committee handling Los Angeles’ renascent campaign to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Jeff Millman, who functioned as Garcetti’s most visible spokesman during his 2013 run for mayor and during the first two years of his administration, said Tuesday that he is on a “leave of absence” from the mayor’s office to work with the private committee organizing L.A.’s bid for the Summer Games.

Because the organizing committee’s campaign could last through 2017 -- when the International Olympic Committee chooses a host city -- that leave could be protracted. L.A. is in the final stages of negotiating with the U.S. Olympic Committee to be the American bid city after initially being passed over in favor of Boston, whose bid collapsed last month.

Millman’s departure punctuates Garcetti’s overhaul of his communications office in recent months. Among those who have left are Yusef Robb, the mayor’s former communications chief; Vicki Curry, a senior spokeswoman who is now working as an all-purpose public information officer for various city agencies; and Millman, who moved briefly to a position as a senior political aide for the mayor before going to the Olympic committee.

Among those who have replaced the previous staff are Naomi Seligman, a former consultant who now heads Garcetti’s press team; and Connie Llanos, a former aide to City Councilman Curren Price who is now the mayor’s press secretary. Llanos had also worked as a spokeswoman for Wendy Greuel, Garcetti’s opponent in the 2013 mayoral race.

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