Ms. Judy Abdo This is Me

Education

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1. 1. SMMUSD : Contact Child Development Services

   www.smmusd.org/CDS/contact.htm - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/8/2008   Last Visited: 7/8/2008

   Judy AbdoDirector, Child Development Services310-399-5865310-396-1618 Fax

2. 2. Judy Abdo

   www.mwdh2o.org/mwdh2o/pages/bo - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/2/2008   Last Visited: 5/2/2008

   JUDY ABDO
   ...
   Judy Abdo
   ...
   A Santa Monica councilmember from 1988 to 1996, Abdo served two terms as that city's mayor.She is the Director of Child Development Services for the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District.
   
   Prior to joining the Santa Monica Malibu School District administration team, Abdo was the assistant director of the Norton Family Office and Peter Norton Family Foundation.She also served four years as council deputy for the city of West Hollywood, as director of nonprofit Ocean Park Community Organization and for 13 years as an elementary school teacher.Since 1977, she has also been the administrator of the Church in Ocean Park.
   
   She represents the community of Ocean Park on the Main Street Merchants Board of Directors and is a long-time member of the steering committee of Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights.
   
   She is a member of the Santa Monica Early Education and Childcare Task Force and has been a member of the Lifelong Learning Steering Committee and the Committee for Excellent Public Schools.She was a founder of Sojourn Shelter for battered women and children, a founder of the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corp and a former board member of the Neighborhood Support Center and Santa Monica AIDS Project.She also is a former member of the Ocean Park Community Center board of directors, where she was a member for 19 years.
   
   Abdo has served as liaison to Santa Monica's Planning Commission, Environmental Task Force, Airport Commission, Commission on the Status of Women, Commission on Older Americans, Arts Commission and the Recreation and Parks Commission.She has a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara in early childhood education and has done graduate work in human development at Pacific Oaks College.
   
   photo of Judy Abdo

3. 3. www.smmirror.com

   www.smmirror.com/MainPages/Art - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/7/2007   Last Visited: 5/7/2007

   Judy Abdo was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in November 1988 and served as Mayor for two terms, 1990-1991 and 1992-1994.
   
   When SMRR (Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights) became a major force in local politics in the early 1980s, Judy Abdo was one of their hardest-working activists.
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   Today, Abdo works for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District as Director of Developmental Services, overseeing the pre-school and before-and-after-school programs.
   
   A former director of OPCO (Ocean Park Community Organization, which helped revitalize Ocean Park in the 1980s), Abdo serves on the Main Street District Board and also continues to be active in SMRR as a member of the steering committee.
   
   Looking back to her time as Mayor, Abdo says, "The first time I was elected, we were very involved in planning issues.We were always interested in the environment."Big developments were seen as a threat to the environment, and Abdo, like others in SMRR, had to walk the line between those who saw her policies as anti-development and those who thought she was "selling out."
   
   "There was some disagreement over development," she recalls."It wasn't really a radical/moderate split.It was more like: what are our biggest priorities?"
   
   City Council member and current Mayor Robert Holbrook, who was also on the Council during Abdo's tenure, recalls: "Sometimes there were issues involving development and zoning, on which Judy and SMRR had kind of a hard view, constantly pushing zoning lower and lower.
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   But both sides agree that Abdo had an ability to bring people together.
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   Former SMRR candidate Abby Arnold says of Abdo: "Judy made a difference because she was a feminist as well as a woman.
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   "I spent the entire year [of 1994] working on earthquake-related issues that began the day of the earthquake and never really let up," says Abdo."I was immediately in touch with federal and state emergency people, and then I worked through the political process to try to bring disaster relief money to Santa Monica."
   
   She was challenged in getting FEMA aid to Santa Monica "because the federal system is set up to help single-family homes and businesses and not set up to help a community that has mostly renters."But she notes that FEMA responded much more quickly to the earthquake crisis than it did to the recent hurricane disaster in the Gulf Coast area.
   
   Abdo continues to work on environmental issues.She meets with the Environmental Task force "almost every month" and is the City's representative to the Metropolitan Water District.Were she still Mayor today, Abdo says, "I'd be working on the issue of sustainability, much more than I did at the time.