Beth Ashley, IJ senior feature writer
Mazzoni, 55, was termed out after three terms as an Assemblywoman, then lost her job as state Secretary of Education when Gov. Gray Davis was recalled.
No matter: Mazzoni is cheery as ever, and convinced she can continue to pursue her political goals as a consultant.
"If I just get out of my own way, and have faith in the future, things seem to fall into place," she says in her downtown San Rafael apartment decorated with vibrant paintings, cushions, rugs and souvenirs of past vacations in Mexico.
Others are convinced, too. Bruce Raful, who first knew Mazzoni when he served on the San Rafael school board and ran her campaign treasury during her years in the Assembly, says she is one of the most popular politicians in the North Bay.
"She always thought first about what was best for the children and the people of her district," Raful says. "A lot of politicians are interested in what's in it for them. Kerry is interested in doing the right thing."
Motherhood prompted Mazzoni into doing the right thing.
Born in Ohio, she moved as a small child to Berkeley with her parents, Stanley and Virginia Onderonk. She was 12 when they moved to Novato, where her father was vice principal and then principal of her school, Novato High.
An only child, Mazzoni says she had to deal with her parents' expectations: "I had to be the girl. I had to be the boy. And I always tried to please.
"An only child is a lonely child," says Mazzoni, who was an excellent student at Hill Junior High and Novato High. "All my friends had two, three or four siblings. I thought I was not quite normal."
She majored in child development at UC Davis, and married Mike Mazzoni, a classmate from Novato High, in the summer of her junior year.
After graduation, she worked in the Head Start program at a children's center in Vallejo, thinking she might someday open a childcare center/preschool of her own.
But when she delivered her first child by natural childbirth (no medications), she was empowered by the experience and quit. "It teaches us a lot about who we are," Mazzoni says.
She allied herself with three Marin physicians specializing in home births - Jeffrey Anderson, Michael Witt and Milton Estes - and began counseling pregnant women.
She became an advocate for breast-feeding, involving herself with La Leche League, and breast-fed her daughter for nearly three years. She contemplated becoming a midwife, and gave birth to her second child at home.
But the stress of being on call for home births was hard on her family, and she quit her work with Estes, although she continues today to support his Tom Steel Clinic in Mill Valley, which offers comprehensive care to AIDS patients.
She became a stay-at-home mom, and - despite an aversion to school politics ("because my father had been so involved") - soon found herself serving on the PTA and the Novato schools' site council.
Eventually she was elected to the Novato School Board, and "from then on I realized I really enjoyed public policy."
Concerns about school financing took her to Sacramento to meet with then-Assemblywoman Vivien Bronschvag of Kentfield. Bronschvag, she says, had "failed to progress in her understanding of policy issues regarding education, which to me were the most important thing.
"I began thinking about running against her."
The Democratic establishment was horrified, seeing any challenge to a Democratic incumbent as dangerous and heretical. "A statewide educational organization" - Mazzoni won't say which - "warned me not to run, saying that if I did I would lose, and I would be dead in politics," she says.
But her position was that "Vivien was going to lose anyway (to Republican challenger Brian Sobel of Petaluma) and that I was (the Democrats') best shot. It didn't take a lot of guts. I was very clear."
She admits she was a rank amateur in the race against Bronschvag. "I just drove around in my little Volkswagen convertible; I'd go anywhere I was invited. I jogged around town and left fliers on people's doors."
She won by 800 votes, and defeated Sobel by a large margin.
"It was one of the most wonderful moments of my life, knowing that I had done something against such high odds," Mazzoni says.
Sacramento Democrats were inhospitable when she first showed up in December 1994 , she says, but then-Speaker of the Assembly Willie Brown became her champion. She was termed out in November 2000.
Still, Sacramento was an exhilarating place, she says, although she despised the constant need to raise money. Plus, "the male domination in Sacramento is really unfortunate," she says. "Women are making inroads, but it's still a male game."
What elated her was the ability to make a difference in the lives of her constituents.
Mazzoni is perhaps proudest of her leadership in getting the Assembly to pass - and Davis to sign - a bill supporting needle exchange as a means to curb the growth of AIDS.
"The most wonderful place in the world to be in public office is in the California legislature," she says. "It's a pretty small pond. You can help a lot of people."
Patti Habel, who was Mazzoni's chief of staff in Sacramento, says Mazzoni's ability to deal with legislators in both parties made her more effective than most.
"She worked very hard to put accountability practices in place (in education)," Habel says, "so that if a child was not succeeding, you knew it early and could remedy the problem."
Mazzoni was "fabulous to work with, very dedicated and hard-working. She put a lot of time and thought into the policy decisions she was making," Habel says
"It was an honor to have the opportunity to work with her," says Leslie Weber of Novato, worked with Mazzoni for "six perfect years" as Marin district director. "She responded to her community, she focused on issues of importance to her district."
Citing Mazzoni's work to preserve the Bolinas lagoon and protect land on Tomales Bay, Weber says, "She always listened and reacted appropriately. She put politics aside. She never got bogged down."
But soon after Mazzoni went to Sacramento, she and her husband separated.
"It was a combination of getting married too young and never experiencing ourselves by ourselves," she says. "I have great regard for him. He's an extremely important person in my life."
The divorce was difficult for her children, Casey, 31, a professional fund-raiser, and Peter, 27, an electrician. "I have learned that children of divorce do not heal until their parents heal, and it took us awhile to do so," Mazzoni says. The divorce became official in 1996.
Daughter Casey, who lives with her brother in Novato, where they were raised, says her mother is "basically my best friend. In all the tough decisions of my life, I have to have her there to help talk me through it."
Besides being "very honest, very passionate, very sensitive," Casey says "she is also a great cook."
Mazzoni's years in the legislature were marked by a 50-50 party split, by a succession of speakers in the Assembly, and by the masterful manipulations of Brown.
She had to befriend people on both sides of the aisle to get things done, she says. "I had very good relations with many Republicans and with Gov. Pete Wilson, which helped in a number of things I wanted to accomplish," she says. "I disagree with Republicans on a number of issues, but Republicans are not bad people."
Colleague Darrell Steinberg, a Democratic Assemblyman from the Sacramento area, describes Mazzoni as "a fighter. She was not afraid to take on a worthwhile battle. It was a pleasure to work with her."
She was pleased when Davis named her Secretary of Education, an appointment Habel says testified to her effectiveness on education issues in the legislature, and served twice as chair of the Assembly education committee.
"My job was to advise the governor, to represent the state to the federal Office of Education, and to articulate what was going on in education in the state of California," Mazzoni says.
"There were really no crises during my tenure," she says. "Pete Wilson had already started reforming education and Gray built on those programs, so I participated in building a reform agenda for California. But this governor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has not picked up on that. He is focused on other issues. I'm convinced we're losing ground."
Losing her job was very stressful. She worried whether she could support herself. But she says faith carried her through. "There's so much power in trust," she says.
A Catholic convert for almost three years, Mazzoni says, "I had become very hungry for spiritual nourishment. I view the world through a Christian lens."
Her religion compels her "to speak the truth and to work for social justice."
Mazzoni opened her own consultancy firm in January and so far has plenty of work. She still makes weekly treks to Sacramento, and expects to affiliate herself with a lobbying firm soon. Her new career "has been more than I could have designed for myself," she says.
"I feel so privileged, so blessed, that I have been able to do work that I believe made a difference for others. I have wonderful friends and live in a wonderful area. And I get to be around the people I love - my children, my mother, my ex-husband and his wonderful family."
She believes she'll continue to flourish.
"I tell people: 'Do your work and everything else will fall into place,'" Mazzoni says. "My work is about trying to affect public policy in California, and to make life better for people who are not as privileged as I am."
Beth Ashley can be reached at
Sunday, October 24, 2004 -
KERRY MAZZONI is back in Marin after nine years in Sacramento, proud of what
she accomplished, grateful to be home.