New Pasadena Official Has Alchemist’s Touch

When Edward K. Aghjayan was director of utilities in Palo Alto, he turned a 10,000-ton heap of ash into a literal gold mine.

The ash, residue from burned waste, contained an ounce of gold and a pound of silver per ton, minerals believed to have found their way into the city’s sewer system from the Silicon Valley’s large number of high-tech firms.

A private contractor removed all the minerals and paid the city more than $1 million the first year.

Aghjayan, Pasadena’s new deputy city manager, may not be able to duplicate that here. But he was hired by City Manager Donald McIntyre because he is “innovative and creative. He’s also interested in being more than a utilities director, and that impressed me,” McIntyre said.

The 45-year-old Aghjayan, who will begin his $75,000-a-year job on Sept. 16, has two decades of experience running public utilities. A recognized expert in conservation, his only losing public battle came last year when he was fired amid a political controversy as the director of the Snohomish County Public Utility District in the state of Washington.

Aghjayan, who was named deputy city manager last week after a three-month nationwide search, is described by his former co-workers as brilliant, dynamic and determined. He will assume what is expected to become the city’s second most powerful position as head of public works, water and power.

The new deputy city manager decided to take the job in Pasadena, he said, because “it has a community that’s well educated, extremely interested and wants to get involved.”

Another strong factor, he added, was city manager McIntyre. “All of my friends who know just about all the city managers in California told me that McIntyre was the best.”

He comes to Pasadena during a time of political upheaval.

At least one city director and several community activists have called for extensive changes in Pasadena’s governmental structure, suggesting that the city manager’s position be eliminated in favor of a directly elected mayor.

Those suggestions followed a stormy controversy two months ago over a proposed assessment district, during which hundreds of angry residents demanded that McIntyre be fired and denounced his plan to hire two deputy city managers as a waste of money.

McIntyre later reconsidered his hiring plan, deciding instead to fill only one of the positions after board members rejected his candidate to head community and safety services.

In considering Aghjayan for the other post, McIntyre said, “He had more top-level management experience than the other candidates.”

Aghjayan’s experience in utilities has concentrated primarily on planning and conservation. “The man knows what he’s doing,” said Palo Alto City Manager Bill Zaner. “He’s very straightforward, he’s very, very bright, very loyal--all the stuff you read in the Boy Scout manual.”

Zaner said that one of Aghjayan’s accomplishments during his eight-year tenure with the city was consolidating Palo Alto’s four utilities--water, gas, sewer and electric--under one administration.

But perhaps the most interesting of Aghjayan’s efforts in Palo Alto concerned minerals in the city’s sewage.

In 1976, Palo Alto’s refuse disposal site contained 10,000 tons of ash, the residue from burning solid wastes extracted from the sewage at the treatment plant. The ash, which had accumulated over several years, was overburdening the facility, Aghjayan said.

The ash, which contains gold and silver, is still being mined for the precious metals.

In 1982, Aghjayan left Palo Alto to become utilities director of Austin, Tex., one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Aghjayan said Austin’s population had increased 90% in one year and his attention was focused on finding new sources of energy.

Aghjayan said his most prized accomplishment there was developing a conservation and alternative energy plan that either saved or generated a total of 600 megawatts of power.

He left Austin last year to become the manager of the Snohomish County Public Utilities District, the largest public utility district in the state of Washington.

It was there that Aghjayan became involved in what he said is the only controversy of his 20-year career.

Six months after being hired, Aghjayan was fired by a 2-1 vote of the district’s commissioners. According to those who worked with him at that time, Aghjayan was caught in the middle of a political controversy that started years before he arrived.

Snohomish County Public Utility District, which serves about 180,000 customers near Seattle, is the largest investor in the Washington Public Power Supply System’s ill-fated and unprecedented attempt to simultaneously build five large nuclear power plants.

Years behind schedule and several billion dollars over budget, only one of the plants has actually been completed and is in operation. Plans for two of the plants were abandoned in 1982 and the future of the other two is uncertain. All of the plants were supposed to be operating by 1983.

As the largest investor, the Snohomish County utilities district was the most affected. Utility rates rose by more than 300%. The WPPSS became known as “Whoops” to its detractors and utility customers began to rebel.

A grass-roots group of rate-payers calling itself FUSE (Fair Use of Snohomish Energy) began to gain political strength in the area, becoming increasingly vocal in its demands for lower utility rates and reorganization of the utility district.

Aghjayan arrived as the district’s manager in June, 1984. His objective, he said, was to try to smooth out the differences between the utility and its customers.

“He was regarded by many as a shining star and the person who was going to lead them out of all this,” said Suzanne Hartman, former regulatory affairs manager for the district who quit her job after Aghjayan was fired.

In the November election, a FUSE candidate was overwhelmingly elected to the district’s three-member commission. Two years earlier, the organization had been successful in getting another FUSE candidate elected, giving the group a majority.

Aghjayan said he balked at FUSE commissioners requests. “They wanted to hire their own independent staff and make a number of high-level people report directly to them,” Aghjayan said. As chief executive officer of the district, Aghjayan said the two commissioners’ requests were in direct conflict with his job description. “Their position was basically ‘cave in or else,’ ” he said. “I took the ‘or else’ option.”

Commissioner Dr. Roger Rice, who voted against firing Aghjayan, said he was “very upset” by the vote. “I just couldn’t envision what we were going to do without a manager. It just seemed like a mind-set that they were going to fire him. I think they felt he was too strong and too dynamic.”

Aghjayan left in January, with $48,000 in severance pay. He returned to Palo Alto and set up his own consulting firm with his wife, Robin. Their marriage is the second for them both and they have seven children between them.

Aghjayan has a bachelor of science in mechanics from Tufts University and a master’s degree in business administration from Boston University.

He said he has not had time to explore all of the issues in Pasadena, but that he hopes to concentrate on long-term planning in power generation, water resources and refuse.

“You really ought to be working today on solutions for tomorrow’s problems,” he said. “That’s why the deputy city manager is such a good position. Because you don’t have to be involved in all the day-to-day operations. You have time to plan and think ahead.”