‘Pizza Queen’ Jill Lederer Serves Up Pies and Politics

To her friends, she is the Thomas Paine of the pizza biz, bravely spreading the good word about a bad politician on the boxes of outgoing pies.

To her foes, she is the Cruella De Vil of deep dish, harnessing her pepperoni-based power source for nefarious political purposes.

In her own view, Jill Lederer is neither, though “The Pizza Queen,” as she has become known, concedes the rags-to-riches story of her Domino’s pizza empire does have an all-American, fairy-tale quality.

Just a few years out of college, Lederer sold her little Toyota and many of her belongings to open her first pizza shop in Thousand Oaks in 1983. She walked to the store every morning, tossing pies and mopping the floor late into the night.

The Long Island native came to California and chose Thousand Oaks for her Domino’s business after seeing the movie “E.T.” and realizing the state’s homogenous suburbs were the perfect breeding ground for pizza franchises.

Her entrepreneurial gamble paid off handsomely. Lederer now owns 10 Domino’s pizza shops in the Conejo and San Fernando valleys. Her BTR Inc., named after Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” now employs about 250 people.

She recently traded in her Porsche for a BMW. Her vanity plates read “PZZA MKR.” She is happily married. Pizza profits are raining down like sprinkles of mozzarella. Life is pretty darn good.

But there is still that outspoken councilwoman, Elois Zeanah.

As Lederer, 40, is first to admit, she has a personal beef with Zeanah dating back to Lederer’s days as president of the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Lederer contends Zeanah tried unsuccessfully to recruit her into the Zeanah political camp, then turned vicious when Lederer chose to manage Andy Fox’s successful 1994 City Council bid--charges Zeanah strongly denies.

Zeanah, Lederer says, is bad for Thousand Oaks--so bad that she must be recalled now, even though she faces reelection next year.

And Lederer is not afraid to put her money or her business reputation on the line to take her down.

Lederer decided earlier this year to send out notices promoting the Zeanah recall on all pizzas at her Thousand Oaks locations--a practice she quickly stopped not because of the criticism it sparked but because of concern over the safety of her employees, she maintains. She is also one of the people funding the current recall drive against Zeanah, though she declined to reveal the level of her support.

“Elois Zeanah has gotten significantly worse in the past year,” Lederer said in an interview at her Thousand Oaks headquarters. “To wait another year and a half is to prolong the divisiveness on the council. There is no doubt that the problem with Thousand Oaks is Elois Zeanah. She governs by intimidation.”

Zeanah, of course, sees things much differently. In her opinion, it is people like Lederer who are besmirching Thousand Oaks politics by spending big money in hopes of altering the democratic process. Zeanah estimates that in the last year alone, Lederer has spent at least $40,000 on city politics.

“Jill Lederer doesn’t like me because she’s become part of the old money-making machine in town, and those people don’t want me to talk about the truth,” Zeanah said. “I will not sell out to them or the developers, and that’s why I’m their target.

“I have ordered Domino’s, but I never will again,” she added. “A business wants to stay neutral. They don’t want to make enemies, they want to sell, in her case, pizzas. And that hate mail showed she was willing to take a personal risk to hurt me. That showed she had a political agenda.”

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Lederer began her pizza career in the way many teenagers start and finish theirs, working the phones at Domino’s on the campus of her college, Ohio Wesleyan University. She found that she enjoyed the hubbub of a pizza parlor and often went to class bleary-eyed after working until 3 a.m.

“I was majoring in human psychology and fraternity parties,” Lederer quipped. “I was pretty disinterested in school. But I liked pizza.”

After graduating in 1979, Lederer moved to Manhattan to work for Simon & Schuster, the publishing giant. But after a year in the Big Apple, she realized she missed the pizza business too much. She decided to make pizza her life.

Lederer soon found herself at the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, managing a Domino’s store frequented by the school’s fabled college basketball team, which then featured a young player named Michael Jordan. A picture of the superstar in full tongue-dangling flight still hangs in her office.

After a year in North Carolina, Lederer moved up the corporate ladder to Indianapolis, where she oversaw the building of 11 new Domino’s stores as well as the training of new employees and management.

But it was cold and snowy in Indiana, she said, and the experience of seeing “E.T.” made her long for California, still virgin territory for Domino’s at the time.

Before long she collected her savings, sold almost everything she had, rented a U-Haul truck and drove to California with now-husband Stephen Hicks to scout the perfect location for her own Domino’s franchise.

Trips to Pasadena, West Covina and Burbank did not yield any “E.T.”-type neighborhood, and Lederer began to think she had made a mistake. But on the way up the Ventura Freeway, she pulled off at the Moorpark Road exit for lunch and by chance found just what she had been looking for in Thousand Oaks.

Lederer’s first store on Moorpark Road was a success, and she eventually expanded, finding less time to bake pizzas herself as her administrative duties grew. She still has a special place in her heart for that first store, however, and a piece of the original Domino’s logo from its interior now adorns her office wall.

Charitable Contributions

As pizza profits started piling up, Lederer decided in 1987 to begin sharing a portion with local charities and nonprofit organizations, sponsoring such groups as the Conejo Youth Employment Service and, later, the American Youth Soccer Organization. She now works with the United Way of Ventura County and donates 10% of her annual pretax profits to local charities.

Last year, with little fanfare locally, Lederer received the National Child Labor Committee’s Lewis Hine Award for her youth employment work. Tipper Gore and Oprah Winfrey were among the other honorees.

“The one thing she is really well known for in the community is her charitable work,” said Judy St. John, a Chamber of Commerce board member and close friend of Lederer. “But what I really like about her is that she never talks about it.”

The other thing Lederer is known for, according to St. John, is her intense devotion to friends and causes in which she believes.

“She’s a one-in-a-million type of individual,” St. John said. “She’s a very special person to me. The word that comes to mind when I think of Jill is ‘loyal.’ If you confide in her, she’s never going to tell anyone. And if you need help, she’ll defend you in a flash. Those are important qualities.”

But Lederer’s desire to help her friends has sometimes gotten her in trouble.

In 1995, for example, Lederer helped organize a golf tournament to raise money for Fox’s officeholder’s account, a fund that elected officials can use to host barbecues, publish newsletters and contribute to community organizations.

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Some of the organizations she tapped for funding, however, said Lederer never made it clear that the money would go to a politician’s account and not directly to charities and community groups.

Critics charged that by collecting the money and then handing it out himself, Fox was trying to bolster his image and strengthen his chances for reelection down the road.

Lederer says that the entire incident was a misunderstanding and that she told all contributors what the money was for.

Her aggressive campaign against Zeanah, however, is no misunderstanding.

The two met when Lederer was Chamber of Commerce president. “I found [Zeanah] was interested in recruiting me to her point of view,” Lederer said. “I simply wanted to have a working relationship. She was full of conspiracy theories about developers, the city staff and the other council members.

“Later on, the first time I spoke out against something she was doing--I think it had to do with the Ahmanson Ranch development--I became part of the conspiracy.”

Zeanah does not recall any such talk at their first meeting, which she described as short and businesslike. But she does remember the editorials Lederer later wrote blasting her in the chamber’s newsletter--unfairly so, in her opinion.

“She doesn’t know me as a person. She’s never made an effort to get to know me,” Zeanah said. “She just started attacking me.”

When Lederer decided to manage Fox’s campaign in 1994--the same year Zeanah was seeking reelection--Lederer’s attacks on Zeanah intensified, though no longer from the chamber’s pulpit, Zeanah contends. Now it was Lederer promoting Fox, often at Zeanah’s expense, Zeanah said.

Old and New Grudges

Lederer has a much different take on the animosity between her and Zeanah. The way Lederer sees it, Zeanah was the one who turned against her when she chose to support Fox’s candidacy. And ever since, Lederer believes, Zeanah has held a grudge against Fox.

“If anything, my work for Andy probably hurt him because she had a vendetta against me,” Lederer said. “I had no idea how she hated me, and she’s tried to make Andy pay.”

Zeanah is convinced that Fox, who has clearly become her political nemesis, is behind the campaign to oust her--a charge Fox and Lederer strongly deny.

When talk of a recall against Zeanah began to heat up late last year, Lederer said, she and other business leaders went to Fox and some of the other council members to gather their support. They not only failed but were told not to launch the recall, Lederer maintains. They went ahead anyway.

“What’s the point of having a great company and a great reputation if you’re not willing to put it on the line?” Lederer asked. “I can take a hit from Elois Zeanah.”

Domino’s corporate mother ship may have been another matter.

As soon as word got out about the recall-themed “box-toppers” Lederer was sending out, the Michigan headquarters of the 5,500-store chain began receiving calls from Thousand Oaks residents livid over receiving propaganda with their pizza.

Domino’s representatives called Lederer to let her know her actions violated company policy, only to learn she had already stopped the notices, according to company spokesman Tim McIntyre.

“We’ve heard of her back in Michigan, sure,” McIntyre said. “She’s a very successful franchisee and has been very good for the company. When we heard about the issue and got the phone calls, she had already pulled the notice. It didn’t even get to the point where we had to tell her anything, but it was against the use of our trademark.”

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Lederer said she has no regrets about sending the notices, which she considers her constitutional right.

Councilwoman Linda Parks is among those who have questioned Lederer’s involvement in local politics, particularly her efforts to establish a strong officeholder’s account for Fox to use for charity and community events.

Parks and Zeanah also wonder why Lederer would spend so much of her own money on city politics--including more than $20,000 just on Fox’s Measure E, a growth-control measure overwhelmingly approved by voters last year, according to campaign finance records. They suspect Lederer has political ambitions of her own, maybe even for next year’s elections.

Lederer’s friends say a run for office is highly unlikely.

“Quite honestly, I think she derives a lot of satisfaction from sitting back and watching the political scene,” said Dennis Gillette, the administrative vice president of Cal Lutheran University and a longtime member of the Conejo Park and Recreation District’s elected board. “I don’t think she has any interest in that.”

For her part, Lederer said she is focusing her efforts on staying on top of the hyper-competitive pizza business, spending time at her recently purchased home in Moorpark and regaining her L.A. Marathon running form after blowing out an Achilles’ tendon.

And there’s still that Zeanah matter.

“Sometimes you have to plant your feet and take your best shot,” Lederer said. “Sometimes that’s the best thing a person can do.”