Commissioner Valerie Lynne Shaw is currently serving her 14th year on the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, the city’s only full-time non-elected policy-making body. She was first appointed to the Board in 1996 and served as its President from 2001 to 2005. She also served as the Board’s Vice President from 1997 to 2001 and 2007 to 2008.
Shaw, along with four fellow commissioners, serve jointly as general manager of the Department of Public Works, the city’s third largest municipal agency with more than 5,600 employees and an annual budget of more than $1.8 billion. The department is responsible for construction, renovation and operation of public facilities and infrastructure ranging from curbside collection and graffiti removal to maintenance of sidewalks, bridges, sewers and streetlights, maintenance of wastewater treatment plants, and design and construction of public buildings.
Currently, Shaw serves as the Liaison Commissioner for the Bureau of Engineering which manages some of the city’s largest construction projects such as the new Police Administrative Headquarters Building. Also, she manages the South Los Angeles Initiative, a five-year strategic plan, sponsored by Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, and Councilmembers Bernard C. Parks, Jan C. Perry, Janice Hahn, and Herb J. Wesson Jr. to revitalize the South L.A. community.
During her tenure, Shaw has led several efforts to improve local neighborhoods including co-founding the Board’s Community Beautification Grant program, which provides matching cash grants of up to $10,000 to neighborhood groups that undertake improvement projects. In South Los Angeles, she ensured the successful construction of four new state-of-the-art libraries: the Ascot, Baldwin Hills, Hyde Park and Mark Twain branches. Perhaps her proudest achievement has been the successful completion of the multimillion-dollar Crenshaw Streetscape Project that improved the appearance of Crenshaw Boulevard from Wilshire Boulevard to 79th Street.
Her honors and awards include the Public Works Leader of the Year Award from the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association, Public Administrator of the Year from the Southern California Chapter of the National Forum of Black Public Administrators, and the Vision Award from the Playa Vista Job Opportunities and Business Services organization.
Shaw entered city service in 1987, holding the positions of District Director and Deputy to former Los Angeles 6th District Council Member Ruth Galanter until 1994. Following an unsuccessful run as a candidate for the 47th Assembly District seat, she accepted an appointment to the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission in 1995. She was appointed to the Board of Public Works the following year.
Shaw received a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from California State University in Los Angeles and Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Southern California. Presently, she serves as adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California, teaching a class on city hall politics and the structure of city government.
Shaw’s involvement with the community and her desire to make city government relevant to everyone seems natural since she grew up in a household where community advocacy was one of the main themes of family life. A native Angeleno and Crenshaw-area resident, her activism follows in the footsteps of her mother, noted civic leader Ann Shaw, and her father, the late Leslie N. Shaw, Sr., the first African American postmaster of Los Angeles.
