Jerilyn López Mendoza is a dynamic environmental attorney and creative problem solver who has successfully tackled a wide variety of unique urban challenges.  López Mendoza's work has focused on reducing air pollution and negative health impacts, greening the built environment, and implementing equitable land-use principles to revitalize the City’s environment and economy. 

López Mendoza currently works as Vice-President of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, to which she was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and unanimously confirmed by Los Angeles City Council in July 2011.  The five-member Board of Public Works, the City’s only full-time policy-making Board, serves jointly as general manager of the Department of Public Works, the City’s third largest municipal agency with more than 5,800 personnel. The Department of Public Works is responsible for construction, renovation and operation of public facilities and infrastructure ranging from curbside collection, recycling and graffiti removal to maintenance of sidewalks, bridges, sewers and streetlights, maintenance of wastewater treatment plants and design of public buildings.

She was formerly California Manager for ICLEI USA – Local Governments for Sustainability.  ICLEI’s mission is to build, serve and drive a movement of local governments to advance deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and achieve tangible improvements in local sustainability.  In that capacity, she was primarily responsible for implementing ICLEI's role in the Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative, a partnership of all California investor-owned utilities and three non-profit organizations. She helped secure provision of local government trainings statewide on greenhouse gas inventories and climate action planning, including development of software and other training tools, logistics, outreach and budget management. 

From 2005 to 2010, López Mendoza served as vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners.  Also appointed by Mayor Villaraigosa and confirmed by City Council, López Mendoza and her fellow commissioners partnered with the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners and took unprecedented action by approving the landmark San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan in November 2006. The Clean Air Action Plan has provided a successful, comprehensive strategy for reducing air emissions from port operations by nearly 50 percent over a period of five years.  In addition, she was part of the leadership team to design and implement the Clean Truck Program, which transitions a polluting diesel truck fleet servicing the Port to a secure fleet utilizing cleaner technologies; helped to innovate a new environmental review process for expansion and modernization plans; and contributed to efforts creating approximately 50 acres of new community green space in the Harbor area.

For nine years, López Mendoza was an attorney and policy director of the Environmental Justice Project Office of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in Los Angeles. López Mendoza focused on creating innovative ways to reduce negative environmental impacts on low-income, minority populations. Her work included negotiating community benefits agreements that secured specific mitigation and other commitments from large public and private development projects.  López Mendoza is the past-chair of the Steering Committee of the LAX Coalition for Economic, Environmental and Educational Justice, which negotiated a $500 million community benefits agreement related to Los Angeles International Airport expansion, finalized in December 2004. She also served on the Steering Committee of the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice and was a member of the Verde Coalition, which works to bring more parks and community gardens to the urban core. Through the Coalition, she was instrumental in successfully launching the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust.

A native of Montebello, California, López Mendoza earned her bachelor's degree in American Studies at Stanford University with departmental honors, and her juris doctor at UCLA School of Law, where she earned two American Jurisprudence Awards - the highest grade in the class. She has also received awards for her community and environmental leadership, including the UCLAW La Raza Alumna of the Year Award (2000) and the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters’ Smith-Weiss Environmental Champion Award (2007).  Prior to joining EDF, López Mendoza worked in private practice as a litigator. She lives in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of North Hills with her husband and young daughter.