Joy Picus


Joy Picus is an American politician who served as a Los Angeles, California, City Council member for 16 years, from 1977 to 1993, and was a Ms. magazine "Woman of the Year" in 1985.

Biography

Picus is a native of Chicago, Illinois, where her father died shortly after she was born. As a youngster she helped her mother manage an apartment building, and at age sixteen she began her political science studies at the University of Wisconsin. She and Gerald Picus, a physicist, were married in Chicago; they lived in Washington, D.C., for a time, then moved to California when Gerald took a job at Hughes Aircraft in 1959. They had three children.
They lived in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley, where Joy Picus became active in the Parent-Teacher Association and League of Women Voters and was also president of the Valley branch of the American Association of University Women. She was also employed for three years as community relations director for the Jewish Federation Council. She was a founding member of Temple Aliyah.
She became a feminist when she read Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique in 1964. "That was my awakening," she said. Before I didn't know who Susan B. Anthony was." When she became a councilwoman she sponsored a Susan B. Anthony essay contest each year. Before that, she sponsored a "Great Expectations" program for high school girls, to help them expand their goals.
After her City Council defeat in 1993, she worked on behalf of "family-friendly" workplaces, women's rights and recycling. In 2006 she was chair of FOTO, the Friends of the Griffith Observatory| Observatory.

City Council

Elections

A "Democrat of liberal bent," Picus began her political career in 1973 by challenging the incumbent councilman, Donald D. Lorenzen, in Los Angeles City Council District 3. Lorenzen won in a tight election that demanded a recount; the vote was 27,575 for Lorenzen and 27,027 for Picus. The latter, however, took on Lorenzen again in 1977, and she won by 19,598 to 14,456. Picus said that voters turned against Lorenzen because of the way that the councilman had forced streetlights—and the resulting taxes—upon certain residential districts that did not want them. Lorenzen had referred to her as a "wild-eyed environmentalist.
She thus became the first woman to represent the San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles City Council. In that era the 3rd District covered the southwest corner of the Valley, including Woodland Hills, Tarzana and parts of Encino, Canoga Park and Reseda. About the district, the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1981:
Although the district is largely white and middle class, it is complicated and anything but homogenous. A study in contrasts, it has expensive ranch homes in Woodland Hills that are minutes away from shack-like dwellings in Canoga Park, a largely Hispanic barrio dating from the early 1900s.

She was targeted for recall in 1979, a movement that failed for lack of signatures, and she was opposed by the city's police and firefighters unions, which considered her "anti-labor."
In the 1985 and 1989 elections, Picus was unsuccessfully challenged by Jeanne Nemo, "a Republican activist from Reseda" who was supported by Supervisor Michael Antonovich. Picus recalled that "My opponents were sending partisan mailings to registered Republicans, so I did my own mailing, signed by Maureen Reagan, who's been a friend since we campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment." The vote in 1989 was close, however, with Picus barely avoiding a runoff, with only a 51.5% majority.
Picus's 16-year incumbency ended in 1993 with her loss to Laura Chick by 17 percentage points. With new term limits in place, though, Picus was assured that nobody would ever beat the length of her term in the 3rd District.

Highlights

Picus was named a "Woman of the Year" by Ms. magazine in 1985 as a result of her successful drive to include an historic "pay equity" plan in the city's collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Also known as "comparable worth," the effort refers to upgrading pay rates for jobs that were paid lower wages because they had traditionally been held by women. The magazine credited Picus with "helping bring about a $12-million pay equity agreement between the City of Los Angeles and 3,900 of its employees, most of them women."

Legacy

In 1996 the City Hall South Child Care Center was renamed the Joy Picus Learning Center in her honor.
The Joy Picus Archives covering her years as a Los Angeles City Councilwoman are held at the Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge.