Jan Perry prepares to leave City Council after 12 years

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The May 21 elections in Los Angeles will bring a new mayor to the city, and new representatives to four of the city's 15 City Council seats. 

In South L.A., this will mean definite changes. Councilwoman Jan Perry has represented the city's 9th district for the past 12 years, but because of term limits, she can’t run again.

"We live in this time of term limits and it takes a long time to get things built, get things funded...You have to work under enormous time pressure," Perry said.

Perry had hoped to have more time in L.A. city politics. She ran for mayor in the primary. She received wide support in her own district and among African American voters. But citywide, Perry came in with just about 58,000 votes, putting her in fourth place--not enough to make the May runoffs.

Now, Perry has endorsed her fellow City Councilmember, and former mayoral opponent, Eric Garcetti.

"His story is similar to mine," Perry said. "For me it was a fairly easy choice, once I was out of the race, to turn to the person whose agenda most closely resembled my agenda for moving communities forward."

Perry prides herself on helping to create some 5,000 units of affordable housing, championing the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, promoting the creation of public parks and wetlands in South L.A., and supporting large development projects like the proposed University Village shopping complex near USC, during her time in office.

But some feel Perry has been too focused on large development.

"That's the lingering issue--how do you leverage the power of downtown, especially with AEG building in that part of the district," said Qwanchaize Edwards, from South L.A. Democrats, "how do you leverage that power to help the entire council district?"

Perry defends herself against charges that she is too soft on developers, saying that standing up for development projects has been her method for boosting her district's economy.

Perry has tended to seek the support of businesses over unions, and that's something that sets her apart. While her mayoral opponents Garcetti and Wendy Greuel sought union endorsements, Perry vowed to reform city employee pension plans.

Perry is known for being fiscally conservative but socially liberal and that sometimes puts her in a political balancing act.

Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, chair of the South L.A. Power Coalition, said Perry has become known for sticking to her opinions, even when they're unpopular. "Her legacy was that she was willing to be a staunch advocate for those issues that she really believed in. Whether you agreed with her or not, you were going to know where she stood," Kwa Jitahidi said.

One tough position Perry took came in 2006 when 350 families were evicted from their 14-acre community farm in South L.A.  The land’s owner, developer Ralph Horowitz, had promised to open factories and bring jobs to the area.

Perry’s role in the closing of the South Central farm was criticized in the 2008 documentary “The Garden.”

But Perry says she has made amends with the families involved.

"I have some pretty amazing experiences with the gardeners or the farmers," Perry said, "We've become friends, they're all down at the the new farm down further south off of Avalon."

A more recent challenge for Perry came last year when redistricting interfered with her vision for community and economic development. When District 9 was redrawn, it lost affluent parts of Downtown. It was left with South Central L.A. and it gained other impoverished neighborhoods like Watts.

"It's a district that was separated by redistricting," Perry said, "It's economic engine--which was Downtown--has been separated from southern part of the district."

Perry lives Downtown and got cut out of her own district when the boundaries moved. Perry has been criticized for putting too much focus on her own neighborhood.

Kwa Jitahidi says that all of Perry's District 9 predecessors have paid more attention to Downtown than South L.A. "There has been a continued reliance on what they call ‘trickle down economics,’" he said. "Losing Downtown is actually a blessing in disguise. Downtown does not exist in the way it did once to overshadow South L.A. This district is now overwhelmingly South L.A."

Whether Downtown siphoned political attention from neighboring communities or not, cutting it out of the district did change things. Without Downtown, the median household income in District 9 dropped dramatically. Perry says her successor's biggest challenge will be to work around those economic disadvantages.

"It's going to be really critical to have somebody who already knows what they're doing and can walk in the door and understand how to get federal funds and how to get grants and push a project through a development process," Perry said.

That someone, Perry says, is California State Senator Curren Price Jr., whom she has endorsed for the position.

Price says he will be able to continue the work Perry has done in District 9.

"We have a similar style," Price said, "we certainly believe in inclusive leadership, we both have experience representing multicultural, multiethnic areas."

He's right--the 9th district is ethnically diverse. But some voters, like Jose Gonzalez, say Perry and Price, who are both African American, don't represent the ethnic makeup of District 9, which is about three-quarters Latino.

"A lot of this precinct is mostly Latino and there hasn't been Latino in the [9th district seat in] City Council for over 20 years, so that in itself is a pretty good reason," Gonzalez said. "The population isn't being represented by the overall culture, so I think that's very important."

Gonzalez is supporting Price's opponent, former Council aide Ana Cubas. Cubas has said she can do better than Perry did at focusing on District 9’s poor areas. Cubas says she will unite the diverse communities of the district--specifically blacks and Latinos--on common goals and issues. But Cubas also says she thinks there is a need for more diversity in city government.

"I really hope that the voters on May 21st choose to have not just racial diversity of city council, but gender diversity as well," Cubas said.

Perry is currently the only woman on LA's City Council. If Price takes over her seat the next City Council could be all male. Perry says diversity was a consideration that made endorsing a successor a difficult choice.

"Sure it worries me," Perry said. "I think diversity is important, but you can't just elect someone based on their race or their ethnicity or their gender and I think you have to be analytical about it."

The most important thing, Perry says, will be finding someone who can get work done in a district with limited resources before their term is up.

Now that Perry's term is over and her mayoral run has come to an end, she says she is not sure what she'll do next. But she says she will stay in politics.