Petrelis Files

Lorri '$327,000' Jean's
Sabbatical Abroad in April

I sent an email this week to the executive director of the LA gay community center, Lorri L. Jean, who, according to a recent Washington Blade survey, earned $327,000 last year, and Jean's addy sent back this automated reply:

I am out of the country and will not be back in the office until April 28, during which time I will not have access to email. If your matter requires attention before I return, please contact my assistant, Adriana Rosales, at 323-993-xxxx.

Odd, I thought, that she would be taking another vacation, er, sabbatical so soon after her trip to Hawaii in December, on top of her taking a one-month vacation to Alaska last summer during the Prop 8 campaign.

My curiosity aroused about why Jean would be out of her office for practically the rest of the month, I shot some questions over to the communications office of the LA gay center. This was the reply:

Hi Michael –

As you probably remember from my Dec. 5 e-mail (see below), more than a year ago our board approved a sabbatical for Lorri, which she split into two parts. She took the first part of her sabbatical during the holidays.

The second part was scheduled to begin last month. Although she decided to cancel the second half of the sabbatical, she couldn’t cancel a trip with her mother that she had pre-paid. She left yesterday and will be back on Friday, April 24.

Is there anything I can help you with?

Best,
Thomas Soule
Communications Manager
Marketing & Communications
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center

-----Original Message-----

[December 2008]

Hi Michael,

In response to your question about Lorri L. Jean, I can tell you that upon returning to her duties as the Center’s CEO after being on loan to the No on 8 Campaign, Lorri began a portion of a sabbatical granted to her by the Center’s board of directors that she had postponed for more than a year. She will return after the holidays.

Best regards,
Thomas Soule

I sure get the sense that Jean's day job is a real hindrance to her passion for travel. Maybe the LA gay center's board can find a way to give Jean even more time off and a higher compensation package, so she can see more of the world, while the rest of us slog away at movement work and community organizing, and keep things moving forward.

If history is any indication, when she returns from seeing the world, she will castigate the community for complacency about something related to either gay or HIV issues, just like she complained after her Alaska sojourn and found Prop 8 losing.

Lorri Jean - the perfect example of an over-compensated and dripping with privilege A-gay mover-and-shaker.