Holcomb’s Temper Key to San Bernardino Race : ‘Shoot-From-Lip’ Mayor in Fight for His Political Life

It is remembered as the “Day of the 119 Blows.”

Even in San Bernardino, where people have become accustomed to Mayor W. R. (Bob) Holcomb’s rowdy behavior, the City Council budget hearing broke new ground in parliamentary disorder.

A ruckus erupted on June 9, 1983, when Councilman Ralph Hernandez asked for clarification of a proposed weed-abatement ordinance. Hernandez was dissatisfied by the explanation, and Holcomb--having no gavel at hand--banged an ashtray on the table and declared the councilman to be out of order.

As the two officials shouted at one another, Holcomb went on to bang the ashtray 119 times, later calling Hernandez a “perfect horse’s ass.”

It was only one of several incidents that have made Holcomb’s contentious personality the focus of the mayoral campaign, his first serious challenge in 14 years.

Forced Into Runoff

Holcomb, 61, is fighting for his political life against a relatively little-known opponent, San Bernardino businesswoman Evlyn Wilcox, who forced him into a runoff election May 7.

In the final days before the election, the usual issues of crime, potholes in city streets and drug abuse have taken a back seat to Holcomb’s personality. Wilcox has been hammering at what she calls his “shoot-from-the-lip style” and “rule by intimidation.”

Holcomb expects to do well in the black communities, where he is credited with cooling racial tensions in the increasingly minority city of 131,000 people, 15% of whom are black.

Nonetheless, he is on the defensive and imploring voters to “judge me not by my style but by my results.”

Even his staunchest supporters admit that Holcomb, who compares himself to former President Harry S. Truman--”except I cuss less”--can get downright nasty.

“That’s Bob,” they say, when reminded of the time he shoved the city attorney at a party in 1972, ridiculed the editor and publisher of the major newspaper in town, the Sun, as “the Bobsey Boys” in 1980 and called a councilman a “gorilla in heat” at a public meeting in 1983.

‘Anti-Insult Measure’

In June, 1984, the City Council fought back by voting to expand an 80-year-old ordinance prohibiting councilmen from slandering each other in public meetings to include the mayor. The so-called anti-insult measure imposes a $50 fine for “disorderly or contemptuous conduct at council meetings.”

“I’m normally cool, calm and collected,” said Holcomb, a tall man with deep blue eyes and a high voice. “But when I see someone who is incompetent or making false statements, I get forceful sometimes.”

When not getting forceful, he bites his eyeglasses, the ends of which are nearly chewed off. He also bites his tongue or rubs his ring, which is inset with the eye teeth of an elk he shot in Wyoming about 20 years ago.

Friends and supporters overlook his rough edges. No one else, they say, has the experience and background necessary to lead this lunch-pail community into a future of continued growth.

After all, it was also Holcomb, they say, who was largely responsible for taking the shotguns off fire trucks in minority neighborhoods during the racial unrest of the early 1970s, establishing a host of community service organizations, bringing about a renaissance in downtown development and pioneering the use of redevelopment and mortgage bonds.

‘Antics’ Condemned

But his opponents, led by Wilcox, say he has become a source of embarrassment for a city that is trying to shake off its low-brow image. Holcomb’s “antics” on the City Council, they also contend, may be bad for business.

In his own defense, Holcomb has offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove that a potential developer or business owner has not invested in the city because of disharmony on the council.

So far there have been no takers.

However, Robert Curci, a Holcomb foe and chief developer of the downtown Central City Mall--which employs about 2,000 people--said, “I won’t develop any more property in this city because of his style and methodology.”

Curci, a short, rotund man whose decision to back Wilcox with his influence and money has made him a major target in Holcomb’s campaign speeches, added: “If you don’t agree with him, he’ll take your head off.”

Even as a child, Holcomb was combative, according to William Leonard, 62, a longtime friend and member of the state Transportation Commission.

Leonard recalled that in 1935, he, Holcomb and mutual friend William Shay went trout fishing in a rowboat in Lake Arrowhead. Shay and Leonard were teasing Holcomb, then 13, for not catching any fish. Holcomb was frustrated.

Jumped Right In

Shay caught yet another and “Bob jumped into the water,” recalled Leonard, “took the fish off Shay’s line, put it on his own hook, jumped back in the boat and reeled it in.”

The story “illustrates his insistence on winning under adverse circumstances,” Leonard said. “His style is one of confrontation.”

Holcomb’s penchant for bucking the status quo has all but made him a hero in some of San Bernardino’s minority neighborhoods. In the last presidential election, for example, Holcomb endorsed Jesse Jackson.

In the late 1960s, “Holcomb (an attorney at the time) was the key organizer in the War on Poverty program and the Urban League,” said Francis Grice, 54, director of Operation Second Chance, a community-based job-training center formed in 1967. “We had no money and without asking for a fee, he helped Operation Second Chance get started,” Grice said.

Holcomb comes from a family that for years played a major role in many aspects of San Bernardino’s evolution from desert outpost to metropolis.

Born in 1922 to Grant and Eleanor Holcomb, his roots go back to the late 1800s when his great-grandfather, William F. Holcomb, discovered gold in a valley in the San Bernardino Mountains that now bears his name. Holcomb’s father was mayor of San Bernardino from 1925 to 1927.

Parents of Four

Holcomb married in 1946, and his wife, Penny, is active in many social service organizations. They had four children, the oldest of whom died of cancer in 1979.

During World War II, Holcomb served as a bomber pilot in the Air Force and was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant. He practiced law from 1950 until he was elected mayor in 1971 after leading a successful battle to keep San Bernardino’s water from being annexed by the Metropolitan Water District.

In his last four campaigns, Holcomb trounced his opponents in the primary. So he was stunned when Wilcox garnered only 438 fewer votes than he did in the March 19 primary election. In the runoff contest, he is taking no chances.

Already he has spent close to $200,000--more money than in his last four campaigns combined--to keep his $32,000-a-year job. He is walking door to door in the city’s seven wards, which he has never done before.

Holcomb’s campaign strategy has been to focus on past achievements, although one of his campaign workers confided, “I am trying to tape his mouth shut.”

Wilcox is also going all out. In charge of her promotion is Charles Foster of Las Vegas-based Network Enterprises Inc., which hyped daredevil Evel Knievel’s jump over Caesars Palace on a motorcycle.

‘Holcomb Busters’

Foster takes credit for conjuring up the “Holcomb Busters” theme of the Wilcox campaign. Wearing hard hats, white overalls and buttons saying “18 Years Is Just Too Long,” her supporters frequently take to the streets in front of City Hall, pretending to clean them up.

Holcomb claims that he has had to pull his punches with Wilcox because she is a woman.

“Bob can’t run the kind of campaign he is used to,” the mayor’s wife said in the living room of their rambling ranch-style home on a steep hill overlooking the city. “He’s had to backpedal to some extent.”

“My inclination is to really tear into her,” Holcomb said. “But then I’d wind up giving her a sympathy element.”

If he should lose the election, Holcomb said he’ll return to practicing law and spend a lot more time fly-fishing with his wife. But at least one of his colleagues would like to see him keep a hand in the city’s affairs.

“I hope we can find a place for him as an elder statesman,” said Councilman Steve Marks, the man Holcomb once called a “gorilla in heat.”

“He’s dedicated, intelligent and well-meaning,” Marks said. “He’s just a poor politician.”

Asked whether he would accept such an offer, Holcomb grinned and said: “Nah, it wouldn’t be as much fun as being mayor.”