3 Backed by Howard Aim for Autonomy on Burbank Council

Burbank Mayor Mary Lou Howard was assuring residents that each council member would protect Burbank neighborhoods against commercial development when a gruff voice suddenly interrupted her.

“Don’t speak for me, Mrs. Howard,” snapped Al Dossin, one of the council members elected last year on the strength of Howard’s endorsement.

Taken aback by Dossin’s outburst, Howard reminded him that he had previously indicated that he was also interested in planned growth.

“I know,” Dossin said in the exchange several weeks ago at a City Council meeting. “I just don’t want anyone speaking for me.”

Distanced Themselves

The abrupt exchange is one example of the way three council members who were swept into office on the wings of Howard’s popularity have tried to distance themselves from Howard.

Although Dossin, Mary Kelsey and Michael Hastings acknowledge Howard’s involvement in their campaigns, they have also been aggressive about asserting their independence in deciding city affairs.

“I don’t see any puppets around here, and Mary Lou Howard has not forced any kind of power or stress on us one way or the other,” said Hastings. “She doesn’t have the strength to overpower us. There’s been opposition to a lot of her views, and open opposition from Dossin. Now people can say that none of the council’s strings are being pulled by Mary Lou Howard.”

Howard has met with opposition from the five-member council on two of her principal objectives--a moratorium on high-rise commercial development within city limits and the selection of a pops orchestra to manage the city’s controversial Starlight Amphitheatre.

Opponents Concerned

Opponents of the council’s planned-growth coalition charged after the election that Howard’s three allies--all political novices--would be mere puppets of the mayor.

That concern was heightened when the council appointed Kelsey, the top vote-getter in the election, as the new vice mayor, bypassing Bob Bowne, the only veteran on the City Council besides Howard. Bowne accused the three new members of plotting against him and excluding him from the decision-making process.

Although those tensions seem to have largely vanished, only now, as the council members move toward their ninth month together, do they feel that they have established an identity separate from Howard.

“I know there was a lot of concern after we got into office,” said Kelsey, who is expected to be appointed mayor by the council at the end of Howard’s one-year term in April. “Mary Lou did help to get me elected, but she told me from the beginning that she did not expect me to follow in her footsteps.

‘Vote My Conscience’

“She told me that now I was on my own to vote my conscience. And even though I have opposed her, she has never come back to hold a grudge in any way.”

Kelsey’s most notable opposition to Howard came during November and December. Kelsey, along with Dossin and Bowne, opposed Howard in her attempts to halt major development in the city until officials finish revising the city’s general plan and a specific plan for development of the Media District, the headquarters for several major motion-picture and TV studios.

Dossin, who was Howard’s campaign manager in 1981, has demonstrated the most independence on the council, proclaiming himself the council’s maverick as he stays away from most city social functions. He single-handedly killed the council’s plans to hold a “communications and goal-setting” retreat last August when he refused to attend.

‘Fortunate’ to Get Support

“I’m already too fat, and I don’t need more roast beef and chicken at these functions,” Dossin said. “I get out more on the street and deal with the people who call me with their problems.”

Dossin said he was “fortunate” enough to have Howard’s support in the election, “but I ran as an independent and make my own decisions.”

“Al seemed to me very bothered during the campaign about what people were saying concerning his association with me,” Howard said. “It didn’t seem to bother anyone else. But I never wanted to control him or any of the other candidates. I just wanted a change.”

Although they are basically polite in public and generally praise one another, most of the council members do not socialize together outside City Hall, and do not seem overly friendly with each other in public. The members all insist that they do not lobby each other in the back room of the council chambers.

“I can’t tell how the vote is going to go before it happens,” Hastings said. “Everyone is always full of surprises. There don’t seem to be any consistent alliances.”

The mood of the council is dramatically different from that of the previous administration, when Howard would regularly run up against opposition from what she called the “old boy” faction: former Councilmen E. Daniel Remy and Larry Stamper. Both were defeated in reelection bids.

This council is united in its intention of bringing a planned, orderly growth to Burbank, Howard said. That direction will continue if Kelsey, 69, is appointed mayor, Kelsey and other council members agreed.

‘Good, Strong Mayor’

“I don’t feel that Mrs. Kelsey will be as high profile or flamboyant as Mrs. Howard is,” Hastings said. “But she will be a good, strong mayor.”

Howard added that she was pleased with the council’s accomplishments during the past nine months. “We’ve got the Towncenter shopping center construction on schedule,” she said, referring to a $158-million shopping mall being built in downtown Burbank. “We’re going to have our 10-plex movie theater this year, we’re looking at the city plan, we’ve given government back to the people.

“I’m very proud, and I don’t think much will change when I step down. As now, I’ll just be another voice on the council.”