Valerie Jarrett — pal of a U.S. president-elect, confidant of the country’s most powerful mayor and veteran of corporate boardrooms — has perfected the art of networking, Chicago style.
Now that Barack Obama has drafted her to be a senior adviser, a key conduit between the White House and state and local officials clamoring for the president’s ear, Jarrett’s skill set will be put to the ultimate test.
She is “incredibly plugged in,” said banker William Daley, brother of Democratic Mayor Richard Daley. “I can’t think of another female on everybody’s list for a corporate board seat.”
The White House appointment means Jarrett, 52, will give up her job as chief executive of Habitat Co., one of the Midwest’s largest property-management firms. She has already begun to step down from an array of civic boards and from corporate directorships that have brought her more than $350,000 a year in cash and benefits.
Although Jarrett’s connections generally have proven profitable, they have also led to some notable embarrassments by enmeshing Habitat in the management of two dilapidated low-income housing projects. Those problems have recently attracted national attention because of Jarrett’s ties to Obama.
“Do I enjoy seeing our name in the newspaper associated with an extremely troubled property?” Jarrett said. “No I don’t, but I also have confidence that people know our reputation and value the job that we do.”
Jarrett was born into the city’s African-American elite. Her grandfather Robert Taylor was the first black chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.Jarrett was a young City Hall lawyer in 1988 when she met Richard M. Daley at the wedding of her friend John Rogers, a prominent investment adviser.Daley was elected mayor a year later, and Jarrett rose quickly to the post of planning commissioner in his cabinet. Along the way, she hired a lawyer named Michelle Obama, who introduced Jarrett to her husband, Barack.
Jarrett became a good friend of both Obamas, serving as chairman of the finance committee for Obama’s 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate and a key adviser in the presidential race.
Over the years, Jarrett has accumulated an astounding array of directorships. She has been on about 17 boards, a total that doesn’t include government agencies such as the Chicago Transit Authority, where she was Daley’s hand-picked chairman from 1995 to 2003.
Jarrett has been a director along with former Republican Gov. James Thompson at Navigant Consulting, an international consulting firm that has contracts worth about $2 million a year with the state.
“She brings — aside from common sense and integrity — a wealth of contacts in the Chicago community,” Thompson said.
Since 2005, she also has sat on the board of RREEF America REIT II, a real estate investment trust that has obtained investments of about $23 million from the CTA pension fund and more than $120 million from state pension funds.
Until last year, Jarrett was chairman of the Chicago Stock Exchange and was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She has been vice chairman of the University of Chicago’s board of trustees, chairman of the university’s hospital board and a vice chairman of the team preparing the city’s bid for the 2016 Olympics — one of the mayor’s most cherished initiatives.
Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), one of the few members of Chicago’s City Council who regularly defy the mayor, said Jarrett became close to Daley because of talent, hard work and loyalty. Jarrett, along with the Obamas, lives in the Kenwood neighborhood in Preckwinkle’s South Side ward.
Last year Jarrett took Preckwinkle to task for voting against Daley’s plan to have the city provide a $500 million financial guarantee for the Olympic bid. Jarrett “wasn’t happy,” about her vote, Preckwinkle said, even though the mayor won by a 45-5 margin.
“Valerie is a very loyal person,” said Preckwinkle, who counts Jarrett as a friend. “She is very loyal to the mayor and very loyal to Barack.”
Jarrett’s main job for the last 13 years has been at Habitat. Best known for developing luxury condominiums, Habitat also plays major roles in low-income housing.
As the court-appointed receiver in a long-running desegregation case, Habitat helps decide which developers participate in Daley’s controversial plan to replace high-rise projects with new mixed-income neighborhoods. For that work, the company has been paid $18 million in fees and expenses by the federal government in the last eight years.
Habitat also manages low-income housing projects in Chicago, Atlanta and St. Louis. The Chicago Housing Authority, which pays the company about $600,000 a year to manage 12 projects, said Habitat does a good job.
Things didn’t work out as well when Habitat stepped in as manager of two federally subsidized housing projects with a long history of problems.
But Grove Parc Plaza on the South Side and Lawndale Restoration on the West Side fell into deeper disrepair on the company’s watch.
In 2006, five years after Habitat became manager at Grove Parc , the 504-unit development flunked a federal inspection with a score of 11 points out of a possible 100. An official at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development told the Tribune the complex was in “deplorable” condition, citing code violations and resident complaints about roaches, rats and bad plumbing.
Habitat “did a poor job” at Grove Parc, said Lonnie Richardson, president of its tenants’ group. When residents heard Jarrett was up for a big job in Washington, “we were concerned about that because she was head of that Habitat,” Richardson said.
Similar problems surfaced at Lawndale Restoration, after Habitat became co-manager of the 1,200-unit complex in 1999. In 2004, city inspectors found 1,800 violations, and a judge ruled several of the buildings were uninhabitable and beyond repair.
Habitat, which received about $4 million in fees from both projects, is no longer involved with either of them. Jarrett said Habitat made a mistake by agreeing to manage troubled properties that didn’t generate enough cash to keep them in good shape. But she defended Habitat’s work, saying that the company did “the best we could with the resources that were available.”
HUD officials didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment about Habitat’s work.
———-
lcohen@tribune.com
rgibson@tribune.com
Who’s who on Team Obama
See photos of President-elect Barack Obama’s inner circle, including those campaign advisers he plans to take with him from Illinois to Washington, at chicagotribune.com/oteam
