As president and chief executive of the Central City Association, Carol Schatz has been the face and voice of downtown business interests for 11 years and is the first woman to head the 82-year-old organization. Schatz took the helm after serving as the organization’s legislative analyst for four years. She took over during one of the worst periods for downtown businesses, when companies were leaving in droves and development had ground to a halt. The Central City Association itself was on the rocks, with many saying it should merge with another business organization or close. Now, downtown has re-emerged with a construction and housing boom in full swing. Schatz claims a fair amount of credit for laying the groundwork for downtown’s revival and vows to continue until it’s truly a 24-hour community. But serious problems remain, including a lack of affordable housing, a dearth of major retail centers and a persistent homeless issue.
Question: You were the first woman to be named head of the Central City Association. Was there any resistance?
Answer:
There was a little, yes. After all, this was the quintessential good old boys club for decades. With few exceptions, it was all men. But this was 1995 and we were in the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression. We were hemorrhaging members as Fortune 500 companies were leaving. We had almost no reserves and real doubts about whether we could continue as a going concern. When the times are tough, people who have worked hard and proven their effectiveness, as I had, can rise to the top.
Q: What did you do to turn the organization around?
A:
First, we had to step up our advocacy efforts, making sure we pushed measures that would help the business climate and stand up against those who would harm it. But, there was something else that was missing: a vision of what a revitalized downtown would look like. Not only was there no vision, but also I found I had to make people believe it could be done. Believe me, there were a lot of naysayers who said downtown was finished.
Q: What were the main ingredients that were needed to make this happen?
A:
To revitalize downtown, we first looked at what other downtowns were doing. We toured Denver, Philadelphia and Manhattan. Whatever they had done that worked had to be molded and adapted to Los Angeles.
Q: Such as?
A:
We found that these downtowns had set up business improvement districts to give property owners a stake in the future of the area. So one of the first things we did was to set up the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, which took three years of effort. It was challenging to convince property owners in the midst of a down market to take on a new tax, but they finally went along.
Q: What else did you do?
A:
We had two big issues to deal with. The first was that to turn downtown into a vibrant community, we needed to create housing. And then we had scores of vacant and boarded-up commercial buildings that were deterring investment. That’s when we looked at how New York was dealing with empty buildings converting them into new uses. So we pushed for the adaptive reuse ordinance, to facilitate the conversion of empty commercial buildings into housing. The City Council approved the ordinance in 1999. That set the stage for the housing boom. We’ve built 6,000 units, 6,000 more are under construction and another 6,000 are in the pipeline.
Q: Sounds like quite an accomplishment.
A:
One of the joys of this job is walking by all the buildings that used to be abandoned and boarded up and seeing them filled with great new shops and restaurants and housing.
Q: So downtown is becoming a 24-hour community?
A:
Not yet. We now have what I call a 9 a.m. to midnight downtown. When the Staples Center opened, that made it a 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. downtown; since then, we’ve had several bars and nightclubs open up. I somewhat jokingly say I’d like to see us add an hour every year so that by the time I retire, we’ll truly have a 24-hour downtown. The next biggest step is bringing in more retail.
Q: But there’s still one giant obstacle: the homeless population. It seems that whatever is tried doesn’t alleviate the problem. What’s been the CCA’s approach?
A:
You have to segment the different homeless populations. You have those that truly need help and can use it, those who have lost jobs, and those who have mental illness. And then you have those who I call the criminal element, who continually use drugs and refuse help. Earlier in my career, I had helped create a detox center for public inebriates downtown. Then, the problem was alcohol; now it’s drugs of every kind. For these people, you need to offer them the opportunity to get out of that situation.
Q: What about for those that you say need help?
A:
For the rest, we need more affordable housing. That is why the Central City Association has pushed so hard for more than five years for an affordable housing bond. We proposed $500 million; we are now very gratified that our mayor has proposed a $1 billion bond that has been placed on the November ballot. Once that happens, we can begin to make progress on the homeless.
Q: Downtown business interests have gotten some bad press lately over the pressure spraying of sidewalks where the homeless have encamped.
A:
In downtown, our first priority is to provide safe and clean streets. But there are larger issues here. We have to come to grips with why downtown has such a disproportionate share of the homeless and homeless services.
Q: You first joined the Central City Association as its chief lobbyist on issues key to your business members. What has it been like to deal with the Council?
A:
In the (Mayor Tom) Bradley years, the council tended to be more cohesive and moderate. They understood the needs of business at least most of the time. We did have our battles. I remember the time the council tried to impose trip reduction mandates on all businesses in the city. We led the opposition to that and it was defeated.
Q: And now?
A:
The current council has shown a great deal of support for initiatives and issues that will better our economic climate. No one there is openly hostile to business. Also, we do have a fairly decent level of access and the council members have been responsive.
Q: What about the grocery worker retention ordinance and the move to intervene on behalf of unions in the security guard issue?
A:
On those issues, we agree to disagree. What was particularly irksome about the grocery worker retention ordinance was the way it was passed, with almost no opportunity for public hearing. I think the council understands now that whenever they want to make a major policy change, it deserves a good and thorough hearing.
Q: You’re a Los Angeles native. Did you ever go downtown when you were growing up?
A:
For the most part, no. Like everyone else during that period, our family lived the suburban lifestyle. We only went downtown for shopping trips, because that’s where all the good stores were. If you look at photos of downtown in the 1940s and 1950s, you’ll find the streets were packed with people shopping. Then came the malls and all the good stores fled.
Q: How did you get involved in public policy ?
A:
As a family, we were very involved in politics. My mother worked on Bradley’s first campaign for mayor. And we practiced what Tom Bradley preached: When other families began to leave the area of South L.A. where I grew up, we stayed in what quickly became an integrated neighborhood.
Q: How did you come to join the Central City Association?
A:
In 1989-90, I was working in the downtown L.A. office of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. That was at the height of the savings and loan scandals. The federal government decided to shut down that office and move everyone to the newly formed Resolution Trust Corp. office in Orange County. But I was an urban girl and I didn’t want to move down to Orange County. So when I heard about the opening at CCA, I jumped at the opportunity and was hired as legislative advocate.
Carol Schatz
Title:
President, chief executive
Organizations:
Central City Association/Downtown Center Business Improvement District
Born:
Los Angeles, 1947
Education:
B.A. in political science, University of California, Berkeley; juris doctorate, Loyola Law School
Career Turning Point:
Joining the Central City Association as legislative advocate in 1990
Most Influential People:
Joan Dempsey Klein, presiding justice, Second District Court of Appeal, California; the late City Council President John Ferraro (“I really like the way he practiced politics, submerging his own ego to get things done”)
Personal:
Lives in Los Angeles with husband, Fred Muir (a former Los Angeles Times editor and now a managing director in the Los Angeles office of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller) and son Jacob, 18
Hobbies:
Taking long walks, swimming, reading and traveling
