Hillgren Elected Mayor of La Canada Flintridge

O. Warren Hillgren, a La Canada Flintridge city councilman who last week won reelection to a fourth term in office, has been elected mayor.

He replaces Barbara Pieper, who is retiring after two terms on the council to work in statewide Republican politics.

Hillgren, 61, has held the mainly ceremonial post three times in the city’s 10-year history. He is a retired advertising executive and has lived in La Canada Flintridge 27 years. Mayors are elected for one-year terms.

Hillgren is also a former president of the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce and was director of the Cityhood Action Committee, which spearheaded the fight for incorporation in 1976.

The unanimous 4-0 vote for Hillgren came Tuesday at a special council meeting called to swear in City Council members and elect officers. Hillgren was not present; he and his wife left early this week for a monthlong tour of Europe.

J. Bixby Smith, 59, a retired Lockheed executive elected to the council in 1984, was chosen vice mayor. That vote was also unanimous.

Joan Feehan and Edmund (Ed) J. Krause, two easy winners in last week’s City Council race, were also sworn into office Tuesday. Feehan, 54, the city’s top vote-getter so far, is a newcomer to city politics. Krause, 84, was reelected to a fourth term. City officials said the turnout was the city’s second largest in 10 years.

John Hastings, who was not up for reelection, is the fifth member of the council.

All members of the newly constituted council favor limited commercial development along Foothill Boulevard, the city’s main thoroughfare.

They each opposed Proposition A, the controversial initiative that was soundly defeated April 8. The measure would have given citizens the right to veto through referendums any commercial or residential development of more than two acres.

Council members are elected for four-year terms.