Everhart to depart mayor’s staff

Friends of Amy Everhart, who has worked as Mayor Lee Leffingwell’s policy director for the past five years, gathered at the mayor’s office Tuesday night for a farewell celebration. Everhart is starting her new job next week as director of government relations for Hahn Public Communications. “I will probably be working on a lot of the issues that I’ve been working on here: transportation, water, energy, that kind of thing,” Everhart said. “It’s been five years, and this has been my favorite job so far.” Everhart explained that she entered city politics by running the successful 2005 campaign of Jennifer Kim, and then worked in Kim’s office for a few months. In 2006, she managed the successful campaign of Mike Martinez. “After that I just did campaigns for a few years,” she said. Everhart worked for both the ACLU and the Sierra Club before joining Leffingwell’s mayoral campaign in 2009. She said her new position will bring her to City Hall frequently, so she won’t lose track of many of the people she has worked with. Leffingwell said he was happy for her but also described her departure as “bittersweet.” He said he would not hire anyone to take over as policy director because, with him having only four months left in office, the job would be “not much of a career opportunity.”