“There are wonderful opportunities
in the city to get involved,” Livermore Mayor Cathie Brown
told LPC students at a talk on LPC campus February 24.
From the police and fire department to the planning staff
to the personnel department, there are jobs everywhere, she said.
Moreover, if you want to make a difference in public policy,
then you must work for it.
American Government teacher Esther Goldberg summarized the
mayor’s message: “One person can make a difference.
If you want to make a difference, you have to work to make the
difference.”
Brown, also a wife and mother of two grown children, has some
trouble with her office because it is very time-consuming, taking
from 60 to 80 hours a week. Moreover, she must run for the office
every other year, so she is always in campaign mode. She has
had to balance her time between home and career, and has taken
some steps, including hiring an assistant, in order to reduce
the amount of hours she must work per week. Nevertheless, the
mayor is adamant about the fact that she loves her job.
Among other things, Brown is very involved in Russian relationships.
There are several secret cities in Russia that manufacture nuclear
weapons. To keep the country from selling their secrets and bombs
to countries that we consider unfriendly, the United States has
been trying to develop friendly relations with the country. Brown
has visited Livermore’s sister city in Russia, Snechinsk,
a couple of times in order to help foster these relations with
the local government there.
Mayor Brown, who holds a criminology degree from UC Berkeley
and a master’s degree from Cal State Hayward, has been working
in the government for about 20 years. Says Brown, however, “I
was never interested in politics.”
Before beginning her political career, Brown was actively
involved in the community. Once a juvenile probation officer,
she states that she learned much about what she would later fight
for as a government official in this career. In 1976, Brown founded
the Tri-Valley Haven, one of Livermore’s battered women’s
shelters. Says Brown, “(Starting the shelter) was very personal.
I had domestic violence in my family. My grandfather used to
drink a lot. It was also an emerging issue when I was a juvenile
delinquent officer.”
In 1980, Brown ran for the Livermore City Council. When she
did not make it, she was appointed to the Planning Commission,
where she served from 1980-1982. In 1982 she ran for the City
Council again, and received the most votes. At the time, Brown
did not have much experience with government, so she applied
for graduate school at Cal State Hayward.
In 1989, she decided that she needed help on the council.
After convincing John Stein and Tom Reitter to run for council,
she resolved to run for mayor, with the feeling that there was
no way she would win. After the votes had been counted, however,
it turned out that they all won, and Brown became the first woman
to be elected mayor of Livermore. At first it was difficult to
be a woman mayor, but over the years the difficulty has begun
to subside. Mayor Brown remembers that at first, “The men
wouldn’t even talk to me.”
When discussing her position as mayor, Brown states, “It
was never something I thought I was going to do, but I was always
into public policy. I love it . . . What I want to do is the
public’s work, and that’s what I get to do in Livermore.”