Room to Grow

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When S. Gail Goldberg made her debut as chief city planner, plucked by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2006 from San Diego, where she was running the Planning Department, she knew her age – 62 – would draw attention. But that was nothing new. After all, she didn’t start her career until she was 44 as an intern with the San Diego Planning Department. She started late because she had focused on being a stay-at-home mom raising two sons. She had just returned to school to complete her college education when she became a single mother at 39 after her husband died of a heart attack. She threw herself into her studies to cope. Goldberg embraces her image as a maternal late bloomer who’s gained a reputation for happily dedicating 16-hour workdays to figuring out how to fix the overwhelming problems of the city’s future development. Although she describes herself as a child of the suburbs, having grown up in San Bernardino, she’s built a reputation in both San Diego and Los Angeles as a strong proponent of transit-oriented development. Goldberg set an ambitious agenda in her first three years: update 12 of the city’s 35 community plans, create 10 transit-oriented district plans and push for a citywide effort to streamline the city’s development process. But she’s dealing with budget cuts that are squeezing some of those goals. Goldberg recently sat down with the Business Journal to talk about her later-in-life climb to the top, why she thinks we should chuck our cars and get to walking in our neighborhoods, and what the Planning Department is, well, planning.

Question: How did you feel when people brought up your age after you were announced as the new city planner?

Answer: I was told that when I first came here that every newspaper article had Gail Goldberg, 62. I thought it was my new last name. Fortunately, I am not sensitive about my age. But the reality is, I am old.

Q: It’s an inspiring story for anyone who wants to make a change in life.

A: I think some people feel at that age that they can’t make choices and do something different and be successful. I would have never thought I would be head of the Planning Department for the country’s second largest city when I went back to school. If I had thought too much about my age, I probably would have given up.

Q: But you started studying when you were younger, didn’t you?

A: I went to college for a couple of years at San Bernardino Valley College and then I got married in 1963, reasonably young, at age 19. I worked for a few years while my husband finished college studying to be an engineer, which he was. After he graduated and went to work, I stayed home and took care of the kids for about 15 years. We ended up moving from San Bernardino and settled in San Diego.

Q: Your husband, Steve, died at 40 from a heart attack unexpectedly in 1982 on Christmas Eve. How did you cope with the sudden loss?

A: I don’t think I knew what fear was until that moment. I had been lucky in life to not have felt true fear until I was 39. But I had two boys to raise and knew I had to bet on me to make it through for all of us, and I never wanted to remarry. He was it for me.

Q: So going back to school at UC San Diego helped you cope?

A: Yes. I don’t remember anything about that semester after he died aside from getting straight A’s. Steve already had supported me going back to school and I already had started classes so I knew he would have supported me. And after he died, I just kept pushing myself because I had to.

Q: You didn’t start out studying planning, though.

A: I was in my fourth year toward a degree in economics when I took a planning class and fell in love with it. I changed majors, which kept me in school for another two years, but I finally graduated in 1988. Planning was a tangible way to use my education to make an impact and I ended up getting an internship with the city of San Diego.

Q: How did you get from intern to head of the Planning Department?

A: I think the thing that should have been my constraint, which was my age, was in fact, an asset. When you spend five years in college around people in their 20s, you forget that you are in your 40s as you all are working toward common goals. I felt the leadership in San Diego thought they could have trusted me with more than if I was a junior planner in my 20s because they counted my maturity for something.

Q: City leaders in Los Angeles liked San Diego’s general plan, known as the “City of Villages.” What is that concept about?

A: It’s basically a plan to create or expand several neighborhood centers, each with all of the urban accouterments: businesses, residences, schools, parks and mass transit, custom designed for what each community specifically wants to see someday. Every neighborhood was like a different village, but all part of one mosaic. Five of them are under way but funding has been tough in recent years.

Q: When you first arrived in Los Angeles, what struck you most?

A: Everything in my entire life has been all for reaching this moment. Los Angeles is a complex and sometimes intimidating place on the onset but once you get in the neighborhoods, people are very welcoming and always willing to tell you what they want to see.

Q: Please explain your enthusiasm for transit-oriented development.

A: The car that was meant to give us freedom, and did provide that for a long time, has now become a prison for some people in Los Angeles. Public transit can be a great catalyst for bringing people into a place tired of being so dependent on their car.

Q: So what is the city doing about it?

A: We have already set up a few transit-oriented developments along the Red Line and Gold Line. We are working on 11 transit-oriented development projects: five on the Gold Line and six on the Expo Line. It will take time. But if citizens are willing to tax themselves by passing Measure R during a recession, that speaks louder than I can as to how much people want more transit options aside from their cars.

Q: You announced when you came in that you wanted to rewrite the city’s 35 neighborhood plans, some of which were only a few pages, but more than 20 years old. How is that going?

A: We initially started with 12 and have five that will come out within the next couple of years. It takes about three or four years for a city planner to write and vet each of them. But we’ve had to cut staff and that’s taken a toll on that goal as we are down from 400 positions when I started to 226 this year.

Q: What plans are closest to being finished?

A: Granada Hills, Sylmar, Hollywood, Westlake and San Pedro. Hollywood will be first, likely out by late spring.

Q: You have been pushing the “12 to 2” initiative, which would allow developers to have to deal with two city offices, the Planning Department and Building and Safety, instead of the 12 they currently have to navigate. How did this come about and what’s the status?

A: When I came in there were over 800 case files sitting on a shelf waiting to get approval through our office. We cleared the backlog within six months but recognized the need for a major change in the way the city departments approve entitlements and building permits. Now we are in the process of hiring someone to oversee this initiative’s implementation so developers have a more streamlined process in getting answers from the city.

Q: How do you deal with NIMBY-ism?

A: People are protective of their neighborhoods. People are fearful about change because sometimes the change they’ve seen hasn’t always benefited their neighborhood. I think L.A. residents have seen a deterioration in their quality of life as the city has grown so much and so quickly. I get that. But I think what helps is listening to their needs and then communicating back what is feasible and why. You have to try to get them on board and include them earlier in the process.

Q: What is your biggest challenge in this job?

A: Dealing with people’s lack of trust in government at all levels. I think for anyone in government, that is what you feel from the public and business community. It’s also hard to come up with a citywide policy in Los Angeles because it’s not very homogenous. A sweeping policy can solve a problem in one community, but end up making another problem for a different community in Los Angeles, because each area doesn’t have the same needs and socioeconomics.

Q: Yours is an appointed position, not an elected one, but you still have to deal with city politics. How do you do it?

A: I understand that every elected official gets elected by constituents that have expectations that person is working to improve their quality of life. For me to ignore that would be foolish. It’s a give and take.

Q: What’s a typical day like for you?

A: Usually I’m in the office by 8 a.m. and out no earlier than 6 p.m. I usually have evening meetings when neighborhood groups get together or social events connected to my work. On weekends, I often walk neighborhoods to get ideas for work. When I first started, I walked a different neighborhood in L.A. every Saturday with my planners to see it from a pedestrian perspective.

Q: What did you see?

A: I realized that especially near industrial areas, we need some guidance in planning. There is a missed opportunity there to better develop neighborhoods that are bumping up against commercial corridors often neglected by the city.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: Well, I love to walk no matter what. I have to live in a place where I can walk to a bookstore, a movie theater and a coffee shop. And here I do that on free time.

Q: How do you view the very distinct chapters in your life?

A: I was a daughter for 20 years, a wife for 20 years, and then for the last 20 years a city planner. I have had challenges like everyone does but am grateful for the chance to have had ended up here. And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Q: You came of age in the 1960s when feminism was starting to become a popular ideology. But there still aren’t many high-profile female CEOs, and there still hasn’t been a woman president. Are you disappointed?

A: Yes. I think we’ve made a lot of progress. But I don’t feel as much a sense of urgency for women today to seek the top and break barriers that I did even 20 years ago when I went back to school.

Q: Did you ever think the combination of your age and your gender would hurt your chances of getting this job?

A: Maybe I am oblivious to that, but I didn’t think so. I think that what has worked for me, and for other women in leadership roles, is that we’re comfortable in a male-dominated setting. You have to be comfortable in your own skin and be confident that you are just as capable as a man is.

Q: What are your two sons doing?

A: My oldest son Jason, 41, is living in Portland and working there as vice president of marketing for a tech company. My other son, Matthew, 36, is an attorney who works for the U.S. Department of Labor in San Francisco. I think those boys are the best work I’ve ever done. We get to see each other several times a year and travel together.

Q: Where have you gone?

A: We’ve been to Guatemala, and spent a week sea kayaking around Vancouver Island; they have taken me rock climbing in Moab, Utah.

Q: How do you stay upbeat at a time in your life when some are desperate to retire?

A: I think I really enjoy what I do. I feel strongly what we can accomplish as planners and how lives can be changed by the environment we can provide for people. I am also energized by staff workers, who care so much about their city. You feed off them wanting to make a difference. I don’t plan on retiring soon.

S. Gail Goldberg

Title: Director

Organization: City of Los Angeles Planning Department

Born: 1943; San Bernardino

Education: Bachelor’s degree, urban studies and planning, UC San Diego

Career Turning Point: Getting a job at San Diego’s Planning Department right out of college after a summer internship – 10 years later, she was head of the department

Most Influential People: Personally, her 88-year-old mother, Louise Humphries; professionally, P. Lamont Ewell, former city manager of San Diego and most recently Santa Monica; and Mike Stepner, city of San Diego’s former lead architect

Personal: Lives in Hancock Park; two sons, Jason, 41, and Matthew, 36, with her late husband, Steve

Activities: Hiking, watching movies and roaming bookstores

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