willametteLive.com || BEING JANET TAYLOR

BEING JANET TAYLOR
By Archive
from Salem Monthly, Section News
Posted on Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 09:38:23 PM PDT

In a town where legislators are dropping like flies, blaming politics as usual inertia, Salem Mayor Janet Taylor seems to effortlessly charge right through.

You wouldn’t think it to look at her. Salem’s 56th mayor is a petite woman. Elegant and soft-spoken, she’s also a grandmother who makes a tasty Sunday pot roast. She has an unassuming feminine charm and neat polished nails, but don’t let any of it fool you. If you can be sweet as pie and tough as steel, Janet Taylor is.

Her reign began officially in January 2003, but she plunged in five months earlier with a 10,000-door campaign tour. That’s right. 10,000 doors -— give or take a few. That’s a lot of knocking and talking and smiling and walking. She hasn’t stopped moving since.

She took office with a projected shortfall and balanced the budget. She added police officers and a fire engine. She has aggressively promoted mixed-use (residential and commercial) development downtown. And like any good leader she has made some people mad, beginning with the somewhat infamous gasp heard round the town when she nudged City Manager Bob DeLong out the door.
“That’s leadership,” Taylor said. “It was a good decision and has worked out the best for everyone.”

Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local,” and in a town where most of the politicians live elsewhere, Taylor is a consummate insider — the hometown girl. She moved from Portland her freshman year and graduated from North Salem High. Then she dug in her heels and built a life here. Did she ever plan to go into politics? “Absolutely not,” she laughs. And yet when you plot out the points of her life, it looks like it was the natural next step.

Her life is an urban fairy tale: absent father, food stamps for a time, a struggle. She was always a smart girl who liked school, but circumstance left her a young mother and then a young single mother. But she grabbed onto her bootstraps and moved steadily up. A job canning beans led to the accounting department, then to the Statesman Journal, then to Allstate Insurance.

“It seems I always end up in the manager role,” she said. “Or as the owner of the business.”

She laughs at this and then before I can think it, she says, “I’m not bossy. But I have strong feelings about the direction and so I express it. I try to get people to work with me, not following me.”

She owned and operated a successful business with her husband Duane for 17 years. During those years she was an active and visible community member, as the head of Salem Economic Development Corporation (SEDCOR) for a time and Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce.

One day three business associates took her to lunch and popped the question: Do you want to run for mayor?

“I about fell off my chair,” Taylor said. She thought about it for a week, then went back to them and said “No.” But she couldn’t stop thinking about it and after her husband pledged full support, she jumped in.

“What a learning curve! I had never donated a penny to a campaign. I’d never walked door-to-door, I’d never done anything with politics, but I had 125 volunteers — they just came out of the woodwork. I had people working on signs, people working on raising money and they said, ‘You just concentrate on giving speeches and walking door to door and we’ll take care of everything else.’”

She did, and they did.

Her detractors call her an industrialist “backed by business” and “well-connected,” but in Taylor’s eyes, those are all good things.

Before she was mayor she was a businesswoman and she’s proud of what she’s done for business since taking office. It’s a constant refrain in her speech: bring business to town; make business welcome; make Salem a better place to do business.

“I think we’ve done a good job trying to stabilize our employment here, but our next push needs to be increasing the wage base — how much people are paid. Better jobs, better paying jobs filling up more of our buildings.”

And to do that, she believes, you sell Salem.

“That’s how we captured Wachovia. We sold Salem. We’ve got a great employee base here. The city government’s behind you, the school systems… you’re not only going to be successful here but you’re going to have happy employees because it’s a great place to live. They recognized that and [made a] $17 million investment.”

As far as connections go, Taylor understands the benefit.

“I had relationships with state and federal elected officials before I ever knew I was going to run for mayor and those relationships are crucial. For federal appropriations, you have to have officials recognize your community is well run and [that] projects [where] you’re asking for dollars are good projects that benefit the community. Those relationships that I had prior are very helpful.”

She is quick to credit the people around her: City Manager Bob Wells, leaders in the community, active citizens, the City Council.

“I have the most wonderful council and they were a very integral part in all of this. You don’t do this alone. We had people on council who very much understood what had to happen in the community. They were very instrumental in being a part of whatever was necessary. I think we’re accomplishing some very good things.”

When I ask her what she’s most proud of since coming to office, two things she names right off are the Salem Conference Center and the improved business environment.

“Bringing that conference center to fruition was huge. It was on tenuous threads when I came into office. Negotiations were struggling and I brought a different outlook on the importance of the conference center, as did my council and that was wonderful.”
She is equally pleased with the business culture.

“Salem had become a place that was not friendly to business.” (She cites the Picksweet Mushroom plant closure and an organized protest at The Gap store downtown). “We just had this feeling by many business decision-makers of, ‘Don’t go to Salem.’ We were losing jobs. We were losing a reputation as a great place to do business. As a business person, I couldn’t handle that.”

So the city got to work. They streamlined regulations, eliminated some business tax, and introduced a phased permit process that won the building administrator an award from the National Homebuilders Association.

“We’re not saying we want to sprawl out into the farmland. I’m a huge protector of our farmland. But what we’re saying is that our role isn’t to see how difficult we can make it. Our role is to see that we meet all the codes, all the zoning, all the safety requirements, but do it in a timely manner that allows private dollars to be invested in our community. That creates jobs and creates homes for our residents, so I’m very proud of that.”

Mayor Taylor describes herself as “an iron fist in a velvet glove” and she says it with the most winning smile. There’s a certain Southern charm to her character.

“I really believe in treating people like I’d want them to treat me, and there are so many wonderful people, but I’m a very strong woman. I’m very determined. I can handle adversity.”
I asked her about the future.

“The next 18 months are going to be a really interesting time. There are always challenges that occur, like Mervyn’s closing, but there are going to be some wonderful things happening here.”

Top three?

“I think the [Salvation Army Corps] Kroc Center is really big. And I think our first purchaser and [new] jobs in the Mill Creek Industrial park will be really special. And I believe that this concentrated effort and partnership between the city and SEDCOR and other partners to step up our economic efforts to bring in family-wage jobs, I think that’s huge, and I think we’re poised to do that.”
Her enthusiasm is tireless.

“You should get hats made up,” I say. Then I ask, completely apropos of nothing, “Do you watch television?”

“I do. I’ve watched ‘Commander in Chief’ a few times but I got a little turned off when she got wishy-washy. I wanted her to stand up and just do it! I will admit, I think ‘Desperate Housewives’ is a hilarious show and I need things that make me laugh once in awhile, but I don’t have a lot of TV time.”

Of course not, she’s busy running Salem.

The Mayor will be hitting the sidewalks again, campaigning door-to-door in early March. She’ll deliver her State of the City speech at noon on February 15 at the Salem Conference Center.

Straight talk from the Mayor
On first jobs:
“I picked berries in the field, strawberries and pull beans. I made 25 cents a hallock and a hallock was the whole container. It had 6 or 8 boxes in it and I could pick 10 of those a day. I loved earning money. I mean that was a thrill to be able to go buy an angora sweater with my own money!”

On working for free:
“Well I ask myself [about] that sometimes. I’m basically retired now. Shouldn’t I be vacationing and having fun? But I need challenges. I enjoy people, and I feel strongly that I have a role here that can be positive. I don’t think there’s anything in life more rewarding [than when] you feel like you fit and you do it well. I will say that it’s not always roses, and it’s very challenging.”

On negativity:
“I was a negative voice when we had a prior administration that I didn’t agree with, so I respect that. But I really don’t understand people who are pessimistic about Salem. We have one of the most beautiful cities you could ever ask for.”

On commercial air service:
“We’re very high on the list for Delta Air Lines, Horizon’s still interested, and Allegiant Airlines, too. We flew to Atlanta and met with [Delta] and they were really enthusiastic. We’re supposed to know here in the next 30 days.”

On her personality:
“I’m a little bit stubborn sometimes, a little bit impatient. If I think something needs to be done, I don’t let up, and it drives people a little nuts.”

On campaigning:
“I walked to over 10,000 doors. I felt it was truly the way, not only to connect to the voters but to be sure that what I felt were important issues, the community felt were important issues. Do you think it’s important to have our police officers? Do you think downtown should get revitalized? I really got a firm feeling that we were on the right track.”

On downtown:
“Downtown has been such a passion for me. I started a downtown task force before I even knew I would do anything like go into politics. I’m thrilled with what’s going on. We have four historic buildings that are being renovated with housing above them. We have this new conference center. And with the Wells Fargo building now being sold, that will be redeveloped. And certainly Mervyn’s is going to be leaving us in a year and I’m sad to see them go, but I look at that as an opportunity to put something wonderful in there.”