Wendy Greuel: Meet The Woman Who Could Become the First Female Mayor in Los Angeles History

Impact

Los Angeles may make history in Tuesday’s election by voting in their first female mayor, city Controller Wendy Grueel, age 51.

Before getting directly involved in politics Gruel worked in former LA Mayor’s Tom Bradley’s administration, but was picked to work in the Housing and Urban Development Department as the field operations officer for South California. From there she worked for the film studio DreamWorks SKG.

She got her first brush with politics in 2002, winning a runoff election for City Council. She implemented business tax reform and helped establish the Office of Public Safety along with other public safety measures. In 2009 she ran for City Controller and won. She went into office and implemented the Delinquent Taxpayer Program in order to collect debts the city was owed such as traffic tickets.

In 2013 she ran for mayor and made it to the runoff round after failing to gain a majority of the votes.

In her personal life she married film producer Dean Schramm in 2002 and gave birth to a son in 2004.

She rides into Tuesday’s election 5 points behind her opponent City Council Member Eric Garcetti.