Carmel Magazine

44 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 LOCALKNOWLEDGE Jimmy Panetta Deputy District Attorney, Carmel Valley Native F or a guy with such a serious job, Monterey County Deputy District Attorney James Varni Panetta is surprisingly accessi- ble, relaxed—even a tad self-deprecating. Known to all as Jimmy, he's the third son of Carmel Valley power couple Leon and Sylvia Panetta. Born in Washington, D.C., he grew up on the family's Carmel Valley walnut ranch, attending Carmel schools and Monterey Peninsula College. A Navy Reserve lieutenant, Panetta volunteered for active duty in Afghanistan. "I was wearing a uniform, but I was seeing other people wearing a uniform who were dying. It made it hard to wear that uniform unless I was contributing as well." He served as an intelligence officer with the Joint Special Operations Command— the group that oversees such sword-edge tough guys as Seal Team Six and the Delta Force. "I had the privilege of working with the real heroes," Panetta says. "It was an amazing experience being in the same room with those guys." After his military experience and after spending 14 years with the Alameda County District Attorney's office, Panetta took the Monterey County position in 2010. "Alameda was a good office to start in," he says. "But it wasn't home." He, his wife Carrie (a Monterey County Superior Court Judge) and their two daughters now make their home in Carmel Valley. Jimmy Panetta is thoroughly steeped in the Monterey County community. Now he's learning the ropes of government from the inside. In several stories published in local newspapers, Panetta indicated that he would consider running for the 20th District Congressional seat formerly occupied by his father — now held by Sam Farr — when it is appropriate. Q: What influenced you to study for the law? A: After I earned my BA from UC Davis, I worked in Washington at the State Department's Office of Weapons Proliferation Policy, at the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs on nuclear and chemical weapons non-proliferation. My dad was still serving in Congress then, and I roomed with him in the brownstone apartment he shared with Congress members George Miller of Contra Costa County, Marty Russo of Chicago and Chuck Schumer of New York. After work, they and other members of Congress— Republicans and Democrats—would go out to dinner together. What impressed and influenced me was that these were real peo- ple wrestling with serious problems. And they took it seriously. They'd talk about about legislation and events that were going on. I knew better than to say anything, to just be a fly on the wall…one thing I took away from that was that most of these people had law degrees. I realized that if I wanted to do anything professional I needed to work on my communication and written word skills. Law school was the best way to do that. Q: If you could sum up your parents' influence on your life in one word, what would it be? A: Service. To this day, people come up to me and make it a point to say, 'I gotta tell you what your father and your mother did for me.' And they'll tell me personal stories about how my parents helped them or their family members out…anything from helping veter- ans to obtain benefits to helping a woman get her adopted daugh- ter here from Mexico. Stories like that have made me realize why they work so hard. But they also make me realize what public service is all about: it's helping individual people. They did that—and still do—and I say that based on the stories I hear day after day. That level of com- mitment is not easy. It's a hell of a lot of work and sacrifice. Growing up in that household, we knew that my parents worked tremendously hard. There's a reason we were raised here and not in Washington. My father had his work, my mother had hers, but they wanted us to live our own lives. And they did a good job of keeping us out of my father's shadow and making sure that we were our own people. They never talked about their work…there was a real separation between work and family. They led by example, never saying that public service is what we should do. Obviously they wanted us to go to college, but grad school was up to us. And we had to pay for college; we had to pay for law school. That's part of why I started at MPC… Q: Here's the $64,000 question: Are you considering or will you consider running for an elected office? A: We'll see. Basically I want to continue to serve the public as best I can. If that means running for political office, then that's what I'll do when the time is right. — Michael Chatfield

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