Ex-Burbank Councilman Turns Historian

Jim Richman, one of the most colorful and controversial politicians to serve on the Burbank City Council, is writing a history of the city’s politics and his own city career. The title: “The Political Sewer: Beneath Beautiful Downtown Burbank.”

The title is Richman to a T.

“I speak my mind, and politicians almost never speak their minds,” said Richman, adding that Burbank residents frequently approach him in public, praising him for his uncompromising views and begging him to run for office again. “The uniqueness of that stands out, and still stands out,” he said.

Richman, 50, was a council member from 1977 to 1981, when he was voted out of office. He fought constantly with his colleagues and his outspokenness continually caused controversy.

Opposed Rock Concerts

That outspokenness reached a peak in 1979 when he criticized the staging of rock concerts at the municipally owned Starlight Bowl. Richman was the most vocal member of a City Council that banned rock concerts at the bowl, allegedly claiming the shows would attract “dopers,” homosexuals, anti-nuclear demonstrators and minorities to the facility.

The statements came back to haunt Burbank after a ruling by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury last month that said the city illegally prevented the promoter, Cinevision Corp., from staging rock concerts at the Starlight Bowl in 1979.

The jury ordered the City of Burbank to pay Cinevision $4.6 million for breach of contract.

For his part, Richman stands by his actions on the Starlight.

“Anybody in Burbank who doesn’t like what I did can go to hell,” Richman said. “I don’t give a damn what they think.”

Richman says he plans to tell the Cinevision story from his point of view.

“I’m writing the book more for me than for anybody else, but I’m sure others will find it interesting,” he said with a sheepish grin. He claimed the book will expose corruption and deception within the Burbank government. He also plans to level heavy criticism against his chief opponents on the council, Leland Ayers and former Mayor E. Daniel Remy.

Says He Was Misunderstood

Richman said his role in the Starlight Bowl controversy has been misunderstood. He contends that the real significance of his actions was that he exposed a “Nixon-like” cover-up that caused the remainder of the council to turn against Jack Berwick, the head of Cinevision.

“I was the whistle blower,” Richman said. “The police chief had released public reports at that time saying people at the the rock concerts at the Starlight before the ban used very little marijuana. But I got some undercover reports which said that there was 50% or more drug use among the crowd. I aroused the public and got everyone mad.”

Richman said he not only voted against having rock concerts at the Starlight, but every other type of event scheduled for the facility. “The terms of the contract were that the city had absolute legal grounds to reject any act that had the potential of public nuisance. I thought every act would have that potential because of the traffic which would have to go through residential neighborhoods.”

The Burbank council rejected all but two rock acts proposed in 1979 by Berwick and Cinevision, citing “the potential for creating a public nuisance.” After the city terminated Cinevision’s five-year contract, including a clause that would have allowed Cinevision to renew the deal for another five years, Berwick filed a breach-of-contract suit, seeking to recover profit he said he could have earned from the canceled concerts and extended contract.

Supreme Court Action

In a separate case involving the promoter’s claim that the city violated his constitutional rights to freedom of speech, the U.S. Supreme Court last April refused to hear Burbank’s appeal of a ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the city improperly canceled the concerts on the “basis of content” and other “arbitrary factors.”

A U.S. District Court jury in 1983 held the city and Richman liable for $20,000 in damages and $119,000 in attorney’s fees. Richman was also held liable for $5,000 in punitive damages because of his statements criticizing several scheduled performers’ social thinking and views.

Although Richman said he did not intend the statements to define his reasoning for voting against the concerts, jurors concluded that he had acted in bad faith--that is, with an awareness that he was violating the promoters’ constitutional right--when he voted against the proposed concerts.

Richman has avoided paying the money. “They certainly would like to get paid, and I certainly will not assist them,” he said. “It’s ill-gotten goods. Maybe one day they will collect their blood money. But I had no moral choice than to do exactly what I did.”

He says he does not live in Burbank anymore, and refused to say where he now lives because he said he has received death threats. But much of Richman’s activities still revolve around Burbank and he still has sharp opinions about Burbank affairs.

He says the City Council is courting disaster in its pursuit of building a regional shopping center.

“If it is built, the Towncenter will be the worst thing that ever happened to Burbank,” he said. “The shopping mall will have to attract customers from north of Burbank, which is the Watts of the San Fernando Valley. Those people are going to shop in Burbank, and to think that they will leave their high crime and other problems at home is faulty thinking.”

The former councilman is continuing to pursue a $126-million libel suit he filed four years ago against BUMP (Burbank United for Municipal Pride), a political committee that Richman said was formed to fight his reelection. Richman said BUMP mailed libelous brochures to Burbank voters several days before the 1982 general election. He said the brochures infringed on his constitutional rights and violated election laws.

Whatever the future holds for Richman, he insists he will not return to politics. “My life is a series of adventures, and I don’t want to go backward,” he said.

His book is what matters to him now. “The last chapter may be sort of boring, but it will be an innermost chapter of my life,” he said. “I will apologize to those I’ve been unkind to. I will settle all my accounts with them. I will thank all the people who stood up for their convictions. And I will say to me, ‘Good, Jim. You did a good job. You didn’t hold back. Well done.’ ”