By David Garrick, The San Diego Union-Tribune
Barbara Bry will bring a track record of success in San Diego’s booming innovation economy to City Hall when she joins the City Council next week.
It will be the first time a local high-tech insider and entrepreneur has served on the council, which could foster more collaboration between downtown and the prospering businesses on Torrey Pines Mesa.
“We’ve often seen City Council members excited about our innovation economy, but Barbara has more direct involvement,” said La Jolla community leader Joe LaCava. “I think she’ll bring their expertise in to solve problems. And I think she’ll keep the city abreast of what’s going on in that community.”
Bry, one of three new members joining the council, has founded and led multiple start-ups and tech incubators in her career, including proflowers, Connect and atcom, which pioneered high-speed Internet access in hotel rooms.
She also received a master’s in business administration from Harvard University after getting a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
While Bry has not been elected to office before, she is highly familiar with how it all works because she covered economics, housing and government as a reporter for the Sacramento Bee and Los Angeles Times in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In addition, she’s been heavily involved with a wide variety of community groups since moving to La Jolla in 1981, and founded Run Women Run, a local campaign to get more women elected to local political offices, in 2008.
Bry, 67, said last week that lack of experience has never held her back before.
"I've been in uncomfortable and unfamiliar situations over and over again in my life," said Bry, referring to being a woman in newsrooms and leading high-tech companies when that was highly unusual. "Each time I'm nervous, but I want to do a really good job for our community and I'm going to work hard to do that."
Bry said the inspiration for her success was her mother, Adelaide Bry, the first woman vice president at a large Philadelphia advertising agency who later went back to school and became a psychotherapist.
She describes her mother as “Auntie Mame on steroids” and said it changed her perspective on life to see her mother continually re-invent herself so she could live life to the fullest at a time when women faced major hurdles and discrimination.
One issue Bry plans to focus on is short-term vacation rentals, a hot topic in her North Coastal district that includes La Jolla, University City and Carmel Valley.
"I think we can get bipartisan support to have effective regulation," she said. “I'm fine if you rent a room in your house if you're on site to supervise and I'm fine if you rent out your house when you're on vacation. What I'm against is when houses in residential neighborhoods are turned into de facto mini hotels."
Bry, who talks with an infectious enthusiasm she couples with a keen intellect, said she also wants to focus on public safety, small businesses and senior issues.
To address them effectively, she plans to get volunteers in her district to serve on separate advisory committees devoted to each of the three topics.
She said that approach fits with the “grassroots” nature of her campaign. Bry also plans to host “office hours” regularly at library branches in her district to maintain close contact with residents.
Another issue she says she will tackle is development, an often thorny topic as the city tries to add new housing without angering longtime residents leery of traffic congestion and other problems.
"I want to make sure we have a city where our children and our grandchildren can afford to buy or rent a house," she said.
Bry said her priority will be “smart growth,” where development takes place along transit corridors. She said a perfect example is University City, where multiple high-rise buildings are planned along a new trolley line under construction.
Helping the city make good decisions will be another priority, Bry said, noting that’s something that prompted her to run for office.
“My business office has been in La Jolla Shores for last 10 years and our street has been torn up what seems like 100 times and I was very frustrated a couple years ago," Bry said. "I thought 'I know I can't find the cure for cancer, but this is something the city should be able to get right.'"
Bry, who lives on Mount Soledad, has a large extended family in the area that includes her second husband, Neil Senturia, two grown daughters, two stepchildren and a 2-year-old grandchild.
Her hobbies include reading, yoga and watching quality TV dramas such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Americans.
But despite the yoga, Bry described herself as having terrible coordination and being “not athletic.”
Bry and the council’s two other newcomers — Chris Ward and Georgette Gomez — won’t change the 5-4 majority enjoyed by Democrats because each is a Democrat replacing a departing Democrat.
Bry is replacing Council President Sherri Lightner, who is termed out after eight years leading District 1.
She got nearly 50 percent of the vote in the June primary despite facing four opponents, and then cruised to an easy victory in November over Republican Ray Ellis, who withdrew from the runoff but remained on the ballot.
Bry recently hired Jamie Fox, departing Democratic Councilman Todd Gloria’s chief of staff for the last eight years, to serve in the same role for her.
The new council members are scheduled to be sworn in at 10 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 12 at downtown’s Balboa Theatre.
City Council members receive an annual salary of $75,000 plus benefits.
©2016 The San Diego Union-Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
