Mayor Enjoys 2nd Run At The Top

photo by Carolanne Sudderth

Carolanne Sudderth

Mirror Staff Writer

   She didn’t know if she was going to stay in Santa Monica when she arrived here. Thirteen years later not only is she still here, she’s the mayor. Again. 
   Pam O’Connor is in the middle of her second term as a Santa Monica City Council member. Last November, running with Richard Bloom and Kevin McKeown on the SMRR ticket, she was re-elected and shortly after that her Council colleagues named her mayor.
   She was born in Chicago. “The OTHER end of Route 66,” she says, grinning, referring to the famous highway which begins in Chicago and ends in Santa Monica.
   O’Connor is “a married name...It’s easier to order pizza as O’Connor than Smicklas.” That’s her maiden name. It’s Croatian. 
   She credits her mother with sparking her interest in the finer things. “She made me the city girl. She made me go to art school at the Art Institute of Chicago every Saturday. That really introduced me to the sophisticated downtown of Chicago and art and culture and I thank her to this day.” Her mom still draws. O’Connor just looks wistful. “I wish had the time..” she said. 
   She doesn’t have time to draw, but she’s still involved with fine art., working on the preservation and restoration of historic buildings. “It’s not about saving every building as a house museum, or freezing it in time. People will not want to live or work in those homes.”
   Her job is to blend historic form with modern function. “It’s finding the balance—always finding those things that give it character and historic integrity while you find ways to design for the new functions.”
   For the past few years, she’s been working to repair the damage on some of LA’s most famous buildings, Powell Library, Royce Hall, and Kerckhoff Hall at UCLA, the Doheny Library at USC .and Los Angeles’ City Hall 
   That city calls her “a historic preservation monitor.” She sees that proper protections are up and the means and methods used are compatible with the character-defining features of the building and works as a part of a team to provide insight and advice on how to ensure that those things that make city hall special are not damaged. 
   Not surprisingly, her first position in Santa Monica city government was on the Landmarks Commission. 
   O’Conner drifted into the field after getting her undergraduate degree in journalism. From the University of Southern Illinois. 
   From there, she went on to Eastern Michigan University where she earned two Masters’ degrees, one dealing with Technology Management and one in Planning and Historic Preservation. “I thought about going into architecture, but that just seemed like too much to take on. Instead, she took every undergraduate interior design course and moved into planning.
   She and her degree went to work for the city of Pasadena.
   “After I’d been there about a year and a half, I knew more about Pasadena than I knew about the community I lived in.”
   She decided to learn more about the community she lived in and applied for the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission. 
   “It was one where I had an interest and it was also one that wasn’t highly competitive.
   In 1992, she moved on to the Planning Commission, and in 1994 ran successfully for City Council. 
   “I thought I had the basic skills. I wasn’t afraid to put myself forward and know that some of the time, I would say something that doesn’t make sense, that isn’t as elegant as it might be. The only way you can get better is by practicing, and I’m not afraid to grow in front of the public.”
   Last November, she received the largest number of votes of any of the candidates “by a big margin,” she said, grinning. 
   “I was happy that folks had the confidence that I would work for them. It’s a responsibility that I take seriously.”
   Maintaining the city’s population diversity is important to her, as is maintaining the city’s affordable housing stock and finding ways to develop more. “So that the entry level teacher can live in Santa Monica and the fireman and the artist can live in Santa Monica. So that the person who is starting his own business and is living on a shoestring budget can live in Santa Monica and build that business.”
   During her tenure on City Council, Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus has had no better friend than Pam, who has been a staunch supporter. “It’s not about being anti-car. It’s about having transit choices,” she said. She admits that mass transit is not equally user-friendly from all Points A to Points B. “But there are times when it’s actually easier to take the bus,” she said, referring to her current employment at UCLA and downtown at city hall, where both parking and traffic are less than optimum.
   She doesn’t own a car herself. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love to drive. When she ran for Council, she knew that she might have to give up the idea of driving across the country. 
   “That’s my dream,” she said. “Put me in a car where I can drive around all summer going to minor league ball parks.” She prefers minor league because “they still have the joy of playing the game.”
   Did we forget to mention O’Connor’s passion for baseball? She comes by it naturally. Her mom, Esther, is a Cubs fan. (“She’s 88 and still waiting for them to win a world series. The last one they won was in 1905.”) and her nephew spent three years pitching for the minor leagues.
And for herself. “I played it as a kid, and I liked it.” She played pick-up games on co-ed teams with the boys in the neighborhood.”
   “I wasn’t afraid of the ball, and guys could throw hard at me.
   “I could place a softball down the line or over their heads.
   “I never minded if people underestimated me. It gives me an edge. 
   “It doesn’t bother me one bit.”
   Her baseball experience may be what led to her advocacy for more parks. When she was a softball team manager in Ann Arbor, “There were lots of playing fields. I moved to Southern California where the weather is better all year around, and where were the playing fields? Where were the playing fields?”
   Our forebears didn’t think ahead, she said. “People have found themselves without much land for parks.” To remedy this, O’Connor has worked closely with the Parks Master Plan and the open space element on “a road map to the future.”
   The Parks Master Plan allows for the improvement and renovation of the parks as well as the acquisition of new parkland, what O’Connor calls “growing our parks.”