The Problem Solver

John Sedlar

The impressive past—and ambitious future—of City Councilwoman Jan Perry

By Shane Danaher

When I ask her, somewhat surreptitiously, about running for mayor, she is quick to straighten me out. "I am not a coy person," says Perry. "I intend to do it"

Our initial interview is cancelled, the reason seemingly too banal for a woman who is one of L.A.’s undisputed power players. Jan Perry—elected representative of L.A.’s 9th council district, urban policy maven, and reputably “pugnacious” political gladiator—has been called up for jury duty.
 I can’t help but greet this news with a twinge of sympathetic pain. If I’ve learned one thing from my week of researching Jan Perry, it’s that her calendar is a uniquely crowded document.

Perry has one of the more difficult jobs in Southland politics, representing the ninth of Los Angeles’ fifteen council districts. A hydra-headed political beast, the 9th District encompasses most of Downtown, all of Skid Row and a hefty chunk of South Central—though if you ask anyone in city government, they will refer to this latter neighborhood as “South Los Angeles,” a rebranding adopted after the 1992 L.A. Riots.

If that seems like a strange geographic hodgepodge it’s because, well, it is.
Stand in the right part of the 9th District and you’ll be a stone’s throw from both the apocalyptic poverty of Skid Row and the billionaire financiers attending to private suites at the Marriot. The district includes the Disney Concert Hall, the L.A. Live entertainment facilities and the neighborhood with the heaviest police presence in the Southland.

In the middle of all this is Perry, and her job is to keep these people happy.
It’s a task in which even treading water would deserve some plaudits, but Perry’s tenure has been remarkable because she has, for better or worse, gotten things done. In her nine years in office, Downtown has seen a sharp economic revitalization, producing by some estimates a whopping 93,000 new jobs. Perry has been a “fierce advocate” for her district, viewed alternately as a friend to large developers and a person with whom one would be better off not picking a fight.
And Perry wants that to be just the beginning. She has her sights leveled on a 2013 mayoral bid, and as with all her initiatives, Perry is determined about seeing it to completion.

When I ask her, somewhat surreptitiously, about running for mayor, she is quick to straighten me out. “I am not a coy person,” says Perry. “I intend to do it.” Well, all right then.


“Sophistication and skill”


Perry’s career in public service has been colorful and, at least so far as the Southland is concerned, thorough. It began in 1974, during her years as an undergraduate.

Originally hailing from Cleveland, Perry moved to Los Angeles in order to attend USC. Her course of study was in journalism, but this ambition was soon pushed aside by her far greater interest in city politics.

“I was always very involved in community activities,” says Perry. “When I arrived in Los Angeles…one of the first things that I did was participate in the Joint Educational Project, which enabled me to work with kids in the neighborhood school across the street from the University.” She adds with a chuckle, “I don’t think I could claim I ever had a career in journalism.”
From there it was a straight shot to a masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning (also from USC), which led to a job working for then-City Council member Michael Woo. Councilman Woo tasked Perry with handling land use planning in the 13th District, a region containing Hollywood, Silver Lake and Boyle Heights.

“It was a very interesting district,” says Perry, “because at the time there was a lot of development going on. Just like Downtown.”

Planning, land use, and development would become major themes in Perry’s career. Under Councilman Woo she proved herself to be a tireless worker and a strategic thinker of uncommon talent. 
“She handled some very complicated cases,” recalls Woo, “and handled them with a lot of sophistication and skill.”

It was this skill that prompted Woo to offer Perry a prominent position in his 1993 mayoral campaign. Woo tasked her with building outreach to Los Angeles’ African American communities, another task at which Perry proved a quick study. Though he eventually lost that mayoral race, Councilman Woo was surprised to find that he nonetheless carried upwards of 80% of the African American vote.
“The fact  that, the campaign ended up being very successful with the African American community,” says Woo, “was in large part due to [Perry’s] efforts, although I think it’s also safe to say she learned a lot about the African American community from that work that she did in my campaign.”

That work turned more than a couple heads in City Hall. After her tenure with Councilman Woo, Perry took a job as Chief of Staff with then-9th District Councilwoman Rita Walters. The talents Perry had developed in planning and community activism were put to use in the 9th, though they were soon tempered by another of Perry’s defining traits: her sometimes-intimidating tenacity.
Whereas Rita Walters was lukewarm to the prospect of building the Staples Center, Perry saw the arena as a boon for urban renewal. “When I look back at where that parcel was,” says Perry, “it had a camera store and taxi dancing place and miles and miles of surface parking, and basically that was about it.”

Walters saw this same milieu, but expressed reservations about its future. She was quoted in 1997 by the L.A. Times, stating that she was “extremely concerned” about the city’s lack of an exit strategy in the eventuality of the project’s failure. Details are ambiguous as to what next occurred between Walters and Perry, but suffice to say that by the time Rita Walters’ tenure at City Hall was coming to an end, her and Perry had parted ways.

Perry worked for a while on the census, then mounted a sophisticated campaign for the 9th District seat, which Walters had been forced to vacate due to term limits. Running against a tough field of opponents, Perry came out on top in the 2001 election. 

According to Carol Schatz, CEO of the Central City Association, an organization concerned with stimulating business investment in Downtown, “[Perry] understood the importance, and she understood what it meant not only for the district but also for the city for Downtown to become…a 24/7 downtown.”

The L.A. Live entertainment campus was up and running, 1999’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance was allowing new housing units to pop up all across Downtown, and Perry was quick to help set in motion plans for the implementation of the $3-billion Grand Avenue Project, touted as the “Central Park of Los Angeles.”
The transformation of Downtown had begun in earnest, and Jan Perry was at its political helm.

District 9


Despite having her calendar derailed by jury duty, Jan Perry and her staff (of which there are 18 members, according to the city’s website), are able to fit me in on a Wednesday morning. I’m scheduled in between Perry’s appearance at that day’s council meeting and her rush to the courthouse to see if she has been placed on a jury. Though this obligation can’t be easy on the Councilwoman’s schedule, her reaction is more in the vein of grudging acceptance than last-minute panic. Jan Perry, I am soon to learn, takes to such challenges with a stoic’s resignation and a workman’s assurance in her own ability to cope.

A robust, African American woman in her mid-fifties, Perry is a forceful presence, someone who speaks with a noted lack of fear about the sometimes-tortuous intricacies of city government. As we begin our interview in a conference room just to the rear of L.A.’s neo-Corinthian city council chamber, it is the details of policy to which Perry brings the greatest lack of hesitation. Fortunately, policy is an area in which there’s more than enough to talk about.

Perry has been representing the 9th District since 2001, and were term limits not forcing her from the position in 2013, one could easily envision her holding onto the council seat indefinitely. As evidenced by her track record, and by her own insistence, Perry is a problem solver. She has built herself indelibly into the fabric of the 9th District and both her supporters and detractors can at least agree that she gets things done.

Since 2001, Perry has been integrally involved in the implementation of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, the clearing of red tape for the L.A. Live entertainment campus, the organization of Michael Jackson’s memorial service, the creation of Downtown’s “Hail-a-Taxi” program, the refinance of Angeles Plaza, the planning for the Broad Museum, the building of the Downtown Women’s Center, the maintaining of MOCA’s independence from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the undertaking of the Grand Avenue Project, and the investment of more than $52-million in public parks. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“I am fascinated with problem solving and dealing with people’s issues and creating a deliverable at the end of the day,” says Perry. “I try to achieve solutions that people can see and feel and touch.”

As she delivers this last statement, Perry slaps her palm on the conference table to illustrate.

Perry’s tenure in the 9th District has certainly favored the tactile. An alternate point of commendation and derision for the Councilwoman has been her close familiarity with business interests, whose influx to Downtown has meant the creation of the aforementioned 93,000 jobs, as well as 17,000 new housing units and $41-million dollars in tax revenue. Her collegial relationship with AEG aside, it seems clear that she has decided her district needs investment, and as with many of her initiatives, Perry has been dynamic in achieving that end.

“She’s not an ideologue,” says Carol Schatz of the Central City Association. “She’s a pragmatist, and she likes to get things done. And she does it, sometimes, without a lot of fanfare and so we all have a great deal of respect for her in that regard.”

While she has certainly been known to court the public eye, most of Perry’s work is undertaken with her characteristic diligence and a matching lack of pomp. Pragmatism is the watchword in her camp. When the city council was uncharacteristically deadlocked this past May over Los Angeles’ budget shortfall (a titanic, $485-million dearth), Perry came down in favor of cutting city services, rather than attempting to fill the gap by increasing revenues. This action would seem at odds with her ostensibly liberal political leaning (and her implied need to court favor with the city’s labor unions), but when questioned about the decision, Perry reveals a deceptively simple rationale.

“At the end of the day you have to do what’s best for the city,” says Perry, “to make sure that the city survives and reaches some measure of financial stability…I have to make the best decision that I can in the position that I have now, and not make any calculations about what this may mean for me in the future.”
Fair enough, but it would be disingenuous to say that Jan Perry is operating with a disregard for her future, or her public profile. At the very least, she strikes a balance between show and necessity. On Perry’s website, you can find a prominently displayed photo of the Councilwoman posing with Kanye West, as well as a photo of her with attendants of “Star Wars Day” at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In this latter photo, Perry stands smiling, wedged between a lineup of storm troopers, aliens, and other costumed fans. It’s a photo op if ever there was. Perry has been known to make herself visible on such occasions, including taking the opportunity to offer a plaque of commendation to this very magazine.

Of course, on that same website you can find a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of Perry’s work in Public Parks, and a summary of her involvement in the half-dozen committees of which she is an active member. You get the impression that both her policy initiatives and media histrionics are just part and parcel of her job. Her highest-profile moments involve an admixture of both, and be it sage judgment or gross coincidence, a succession of these occasions throughout Perry’s council tenure has helped the councilwoman to her current renown.

In 2009 Perry found herself in the role of Acting Mayor during Michael Jackson’s memorial service. That title is one that Perry assumes whenever Mayor Antonio Villairagosa and City Council President Eric Garcetti are both out of town, and this time it just so happened to coincide with the decade’s foremost media field day. Perry was unexpectedly placed in the national spotlight, serving as a city spokeswoman while AEG (the investment group behind Staples Center) staged an elaborate memorial service for the departed pop star. Though the rancor over the city’s $3.2-million involvement in that memorial has only recently begun to cool, Perry’s role in the event remains a near perfect storm of political exposure.

The second of Perry’s highest-profile moments came via a 2010 interim control ordinance that put a yearlong stay on the construction of standalone fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles. While everyone from the L.A. Weekly to the Wall Street Journal cast this action as a bit of liberal-minded finger-wagging, Perry herself viewed the ordinance as a simple land use matter. “What it does encourage is the assemblage of land,” says Perry. “So for the land that we have left to develop we are able to assemble larger parcels so we can assemble grocery stores and possibly build shopping centers to bring in other types of food choices.”

Third among Perry’s more media-heavy run ins was the affair surrounding the South Central Farm. A fourteen-acre parcel of land that was being farmed by primarily Latino volunteers, the South Central Farm had been turned over to community agriculture while in a purgatory between city and private ownership. In 2003, the property was sold back to original owner Ralph Horowitz, and the farmers were told to vacate so that their crops could be razed in favor of warehouses. In the high-profile fracas that ensued, Perry came down on the side of the developer. The farm was eventually plowed under, though Perry worked to resettle the farmers to another plot of land in her district.

Though Perry was somewhat demonized in coverage of the affair (especially in the documentary The Garden, which was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award), she responds to questions about the issue with her characteristic focus on the brass tacks of governing. “[The farmers] were on private property and it was a month to month agreement started under Mayor Bradley, and the leaders of their movement…knew that. So that was private property. And it wasn’t any deeper than that.”

The Jigsaw Puzzle


Some point to the exposure provided by Michael Jackson’s memorial service as the catalyst that set Jan Perry on her current mayoral ambitions. Whatever the source, Perry’s desire for the office of mayor is now a well-recognized political fact. As Carol Schatz simply puts it: “She’s runnin’.”

Perry herself is still gearing up for her presence in what is looking to be a very crowded field. Of the early contenders for 2013’s mayoral race, Perry’s name is often mentioned in tandem with the similarly open secrets of City Council President Eric Garcetti, and millionaire developer Rick Caruso’s simultaneous bids for the office. As far as policy initiatives, Perry is approaching the campaign with a focus on the issues that have defined her city council tenure.

When questioned about her mayoral platform, she mentions, “obviously the economic recovery, to elevate that to the highest position in terms of priorities and to continue to attract new investment into the city.”

It’s too early to get into the nuts and bolts of that ambition, but Perry is clear about her desire to aggressively address California’s budget problems, and to continue in her crusade to turn Los Angeles into a “truly international city.”

Beyond that, 2013’s mayoral race is still a murky affair. In the words of onetime mayoral candidate Michael Woo, “It’s like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle to put together an effective, citywide mayoral campaign…Only time will tell who is able to solve the puzzle of it.”

Though Jan Perry is predicted to be at a funding disadvantage in the race, she is still very much a contender. If her tenure in the 9th District has proven anything, it is that Perry is an adept at navigating the “jigsaw puzzle” of city government.

“You have to be willing to develop relationships with people and communicate and you actually have to enjoy it,” says Perry of her work on the council. “Because if you don’t enjoy that sort of thing, you shouldn’t be in this business, because it’s hard; it’s taxing, it’s challenging, and it’s all consuming. As for me, I’ve spent years understanding not just the communities I represent, but I think I do have a strong curiosity about what makes people tick.”

Perry has used that curiosity not only for the betterment of her district, but also to carve herself a nigh-impenetrable niche in L.A. politics. In interviews I conducted for this story, the word “pugnacious” cropped up at least three times, and with good reason. One of the bigger surprises of my interview with Perry occurs when I broach the subject of naysayers who have expressed doubt as to whether she can draw the multifaceted support necessary for a run at the mayor’s office.

When I pose these concerns to Perry, she doesn’t answer them right away—instead, she smiles and fixes me with a knowing gaze. When she speaks, it’s with dry amusement: “I would say that those people clearly don’t know me.”

 

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