New Judge to Try His Candid Style on the Bench

It isn’t difficult to find out about Robert W. Parkin. He will tell you most anything. And to some extent, that is unusual.

After a 28-year career with the city of Long Beach--ending last month when he resigned as city attorney to accept a Superior Court judgeship--he has come to consider his personal life in the same way he considers government--open to the public.

Those who know Parkin say that the silver-haired lawyer’s candid and forthright style is part of what has made him among the most respected public officials in town.

Parting Comments

Despite his unswerving admiration for the city and its servants, he has never been afraid to offer criticism where he believes it is due--even as he heads out the door. For instance:

- Parkin said some of the nine City Council members he advised up until Sept. 30, “for whatever reason, are more concerned with their own personal futures” than with “the issues that they should deal with.”

“I don’t think anything would be served by identifying them,” he said. But he stressed that “those people definitely constitute a minority of the council.”

- One way to refocus their attention, he continued, would be to revise city elections. While council candidates used to face voters citywide, a charter amendment in 1976 changed that so they only have to run in the districts they wish to represent. Parkin would strike a balance between the two so that candidates would run in districts during a primary, but citywide during the general election.

Tunnel Vision

As it is, Parkin said, “When a person concerns himself with only the problems in his district--because those are the concerns that get him elected--he couldn’t care less what is going on in someone else’s district. And lots of times what’s going on in someone else’s district has a citywide bearing.”

Council minutes provide clear evidence of that kind of political tunnel vision, he said. On land-use issues, for example, “there will be statements made on the record where other council people will defer to the council person of that district,” Parkin said. That means, “rather than nine people making a collective decision you’ve got one person making the decision. I don’t think in a representative form of government that’s the way it should work.”

- Finally, Parkin is opposed to opening the mayor’s post to citywide election and making the job full-time. He said he favors the current city manager form of government.

“If we have a full-time, elected mayor and we also have a city manager,” he predicts, “we’re going to have a real conflict as to who in fact is the real administrator.”

Parkin’s open style, colleagues say, stems from his open view of government. He has been a strong advocate of laws requiring open meetings and records.

‘The Public’s Business’

“I always felt rather strongly that the public’s business ought to be open,” said the lawyer-turned-jurist. “It’s just like in your own personal affairs . . . You’ve got a right to go and take a look and see what is going on there. You know, ‘Do I like it, do I need to change it, what do I need to do different?’ ”

While Parkin rejected any suggestion that his viewpoint is rare among public servants, he acknowledged that “there are a lot of people (in government) who would just as soon that a lot of things not be made public, especially things that might tend to embarrass someone.”

“Some people just have an ingrained sort of a feeling of confidentiality,” Parkin said, glancing across the desk of his fourth-floor office in the Long Beach branch of the county courthouse. “I guess in my own, personal way I never felt that. If anybody ever asked me how much money I made I’d tell them.”

$10,000 Pay Cut

Indeed, he does. As the elected city attorney for the past six years, Parkin said, he drew an annual salary of $87,000. Ironically, his rise to the Los Angeles County court bench will bring him $10,000 a year less. But he said the prestige of the post makes up for the pay cut.

“I think every lawyer thinks about becoming a judge,” said the square-shouldered Parkin, a Long Beach resident since his parents moved here from Rhode Island in 1945. Not that he disliked being city attorney, he quickly cautioned.

“City attorney of Long Beach is a real challenging job,” he said, “because of its uniqueness. You don’t find too many cities that have a major oil field that they’re responsible for operating, and a major port, an airport and a couple of utilities.”

But early this year, the 53-year-old attorney said, he began considering whether he wanted to seek another four-year term in next spring’s city election, or whether the time was right to reach higher.

“It’s not that I consider myself to be that old,” he said with a smile, “but I have to be practical about it. I’m in my 50s. There’s only so many good years left . . . If I’m going to take a crack at this challenge, I’ve got to do it now.”

So Parkin sat down and quietly wrote a letter to the staff of Gov. George Deukmejian--also a Republican who is from Long Beach--and said he would “like to be considered” for the bench. “They don’t solicit,” Parkin explained. “You let it be known that you want to be appointed.”

In Line for Presidency

Parkin had the hearty support of fellow lawyers such as Samuel M. Salmon, president of the Long Beach Bar Assn. (Parkin was to become president-elect of the bar next year, but had to resign upon accepting the judgeship. Bar rules say that only lawyers may hold office.)

Whatever the complexity or emotion of the issue, Salmon said, Parkin “is able to view a situation and balance it with appropriateness. And I believe that’s one of the most important factors of being a judge of anything, be it a pie-eating contest or a case in Superior Court.”

Thomas J. Clark, for nearly 20 years a Long Beach city councilman or mayor, said: “Bob’s always been a very good person to work with, very even-tempered, a very thoughtful individual, and I think he’ll be an excellent judge.”

(Parkin was replaced at City Hall by a former assistant, John R. Calhoun, who will serve until next spring’s municipal election. Calhoun promptly said he intends to run for the office.)

Advice Was Costly

About the only time Parkin’s legal advice to the City Council drew criticism was in early 1984, when the city settled a lawsuit and was forced to pay $9.2 million for three acres of oceanfront property that it could have bought for $1.9 million a few years before. It was Parkin who had recommended that the city press the suit in the first place rather than pay the $1.9 million sought by developer Mark Taper.

“What people don’t realize,” Parkin said, “is that one of the basic issues in that case was the right of the City Council to publicly debate the feasibility of acquiring property” even if the decision was not to buy the property. Although that point was eventually won in a court appeal, the city eventually decided to buy the land, but by then it had increased in value.

“We won the battle but lost the war,” he conceded.

“As we look back on it,” said Councilman Clark, “both Bob and the council wish we had resolved it back before the suit was filed. It’s not one of the highlights of our careers. It seemed to reflect more on the council than on Bob, though.”

Clark said he was among those who first urged Parkin to seek the city attorney’s job. But Parkin’s introduction to municipal employment had occurred long before.

St. Anthony’s Graduate

After graduation from St. Anthony’s High School in Long Beach and then the University of California at Berkeley, Parkin enlisted in the Army toward the end of the Korean War. Although the fighting had officially ended, he spent a year in Korea assigned to the military police at Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed.

He returned home to work as an investigator for the Orange County district attorney and in 1956, began attending night classes at Pacific Coast University law school. He later worked in the Long Beach Police Department’s crime lab and then the city prosecutor’s office. In 1965, Parkin decided he needed some grounding in civil law, so he transferred to the city attorney’s office and was assigned to work on issues involving the harbor and the city’s tideland oil and gas reserves.

“That was always a very interesting job,” Parkin recalled. “Everything we did was big. Everything involved lots of money. It’s kind of fascinating to work on things when you’re talking in terms of numbers up in the millions . . . even though none of it was mine.”

His work there also provided Parkin his first taste of “the legislative process” in Sacramento.

“I guess it was more political than I ever imagined. I found out that it doesn’t make any difference how good your cause is,” Parkin sighed. “Unless the right people think it’s OK, then it’s not going anywhere.”

Appointed in 1974

In 1974, long-time City Prosecutor James Starr retired, and the City Council appointed Parkin to serve the remaining year of his three-year term. The following year, he won election to a new term, running unopposed. Parkin decided to run for the city attorney’s post in 1978. He remained there, serving two terms, until his departure Sept. 30.

“After 28 years, it was a funny feeling walking out of City Hall that last day,” the new judge said.

But now, Parkin said he does not have time to look back.

“You can see I’m hitting the books again,” he said, peering over an assortment of heavy-looking texts loaded with small print.

“You don’t just slide right into this, I found out. There’s a lot to learn . . . When you’re on this side of the bench as opposed to the other one, it’s a whole lot different . . . I have a criminal case that’s about to start and I haven’t been around criminal law in a long time so I’m breaking out the books on that.”