Jalili busy in retirement
By Daily Press staff
Former City Manager John Jalili was among four new appointees to a governing board that oversees affordable housing projects throughout Santa Monica, officials announced Wednesday.
Jalili, 66, retired in November of 1999 after 25 years at City Hall, and 15 years as city manager. As a volunteer on the board of directors for the nonprofit Community Corp. of Santa Monica, Jalili said he looks forward to being at the forefront of an issue that affects residents throughout the state.
“There is a housing crisis in the entire California,” said Jalili, who lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife Friedl. “I know how difficult it is to do affordable housing. I look at (CCSM’s) record and I think they have been quite successful.”
With more than 2,400 tenants in 78 projects throughout the city, Community Corp. is one of the biggest landlords in Santa Monica. A homicide last month at a CCSM complex in the Ocean Park neighborhood prompted security concerns among residents and neighbors, but officials maintain crime rates are low when compared to the overall number of tenants.
Also appointed earlier this month to the 21-member board — whose members meet monthly — was Robert Gardner, managing director of a national real estate advisory firm; Mike Russell, a senior real estate advisor to Saint John’s Health Center; and Steve Wagner, a veteran affordable housing advocate and operations director of the Menorah Housing Foundation.
Prior to his appointment as city manager in 1984, Jalili served five years as assistant city manager and five years as director of community development for City Hall. Earlier in his career, he served as director of planning and development in Inglewood, and director of planning in Ames, Iowa.
Since retiring, Jalili has kept busy. He said he’s traveled, volunteered on various boards and served as a consultant to the city of Sacramento, Santa Monica College and the Rand Corp., among other groups.
Asked if he missed being the manager of City Hall, Jalili laughed and said, “It was clearly a challenge for a long period of time — and I enjoyed it — but I am in a new phase of my life, and I don’t want to do that again.”
— John Wood
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 22, 2004. Read the original PDF.