Pasadena’s Public Unrest Rattles Political Structure

As the city celebrates its centennial, officials have been forced to take a wary look at the future by a far-ranging controversy that has shaken the politicalpower structure here.

At issue is a growing dissatisfaction with City Hall that has sparked heated debate but little unanimity among various groups of citizens and politicians demanding a new form of government in Pasadena.

Although city officials say Pasadena’s political structure is in jeopardy and operating under a cloud of public mistrust, no one is certain what the outcome will be.

Officials Under Fire

City officials have been under fire since last summer, when a proposed assessment district unleashed a citizens uprising against it. Since then, a citizens group has launched a petition drive to completely reorganize City Hall; the board of city directors has reluctantly appointed a Charter Study Committee to review Pasadena’s governmental structure, and, according to City Hall sources, City Manager Donald F. McIntyre has been asked to resign by three of the seven city directors.

“Anyone who says they know how things are going to turn out in six months or a year is one who doesn’t know and is admitting by their certainty just how ignorant they are,” said City Director Rick Cole, who this week aligned himself with Citizens for Representative Government, the most vocal group clamoring for a shake-up of City Hall. Cole reportedly is one of the directors who asked McIntyre to resign.

The small, grass-roots organization is led by Ozro Anderson, 75, and Bill Pompey, 83, two political fixtures in Pasadena known for handing out chocolate candies to politicians and reporters while lobbying for local causes.

The group wants to get rid of the city manager’s position and shift the base of political power in Pasadena from the seven-member Board of City Directors to a directly elected mayor who would act as the city’s chief executive officer. The group is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative on their proposal that would also add an eighth councilmanic district that Anderson and Pompey say will give greater representation the city’s Latino community, and would make the now-appointive positions of city clerk and city attorney elective offices. The mayor would be the ninth member of the City Council.

On Tuesday, Cole called a press conference on the steps of City Hall to announce that he supports the group and will help solicit petition signatures to place the initiative on the November ballot.

‘Give the People a Choice’

“I believe that this initiative, if enacted, would make for better government in Pasadena,” Cole said at the press conference. “I think it is the best proposal before us. It is the best hope to give the people a choice.”

Cole also criticized his fellow board members, saying: “I think that a majority of them do not favor change and are reluctant to put it on the ballot.” The board has never voted on the sweeping changes recommended by the citizens group. Citizens for Representative Government has a membership of about 20 people that includes attorneys Dale Gronemeier and Chris Sutton, both longtime friends of Cole.

Anderson said that his group has collected 841 signatures since it began circulating petitions about five weeks ago. To qualify for the November ballot, the group must collect about 5,800 signatures by June 23.

It is the second go-round for Citizens for Representative Government. In February, its first petition drive failed to qualify for the June ballot after 813 of the 7,166 signatures submitted were disqualified by the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office and City Clerk Pamela Swift. City Hall sources say that Cole, an ambitious and outspoken member of the board, aligned himself with the group to further his own political desire to become mayor, something he would not be able to attain for several more years under the city’s present system. Currently, the mayor’s job is largely ceremonial and goes to the board member with the most seniority who has not held the post before. Cole, elected in 1983, is the newest member of the board.

“I have said repeatedly, and I’ll say it here,” Cole said at the press conference, “I will not be a candidate for that office the first time. I am not interested in running for that office at this time.”

But last week, in an interview with The Times, Cole said he would not make a decision on running for mayor until he saw “how things went” on the ballot initiative.

Board Divided

The Board of City Directors is divided into several camps on the issue of changing Pasadena’s form of government. Directors Cole and Jess Hughston support the petition drive, although Hughston said this week that he will not actively campaign for its passage. Newly appointed Mayor John Crowley said he supports the idea of a directly elected mayor, but not one with the broad power that the petition drive mandates. Crowley also said he opposes the elimination of the city manager’s office.

Bill Bogaard, who just stepped down as mayor, said he thinks the matter should be carefully studied, but doubts that a change is really needed. Directors Loretta Thompson-Glickman and Jo Heckman, both former mayors and the most senior members of the board, said the system is fine as it is. Director Bill Thomson was out of town and unavailable for comment this week.

“I think the board is united on the general issues that face the city,” Cole said. “But when it comes down to who’s going to run the city, that’s where we all fall out.”

Because of the board’s lack of cohesiveness, most members say they are reluctant to propose any kind of change and would prefer instead to wait for the recommendation of the recently appointed Charter Study Committee.

City directors took 10 months to appoint the 11-member committee, which was first suggested by Hughston during the assessment district controversy. Then-mayor Bogaard said the delay was caused by several directors “dragging their feet” on the issue, including him.

Made up of business and community leaders, the committee has mailed more than 400 letters to groups and individuals seeking input on possible changes in the City Charter. So far, the committee has heard presentations from groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, which advocates an elected mayor and the retention of the city manager’s position.

Too Early to Predict

Committee chairman Charles McKenney, an attorney and former member of the Board of City Directors, said it is too early to predict the recommendation of the committee when it reports its findings at the end of next month.

“It’s hard to know what people think of Pasadena government right now,” McKenney said. “We’re trying to find out if people really think the system is broken, or whether the system just needs fixing, or whether this is just another political crisis that comes to all cities at one time or another.”

Meanwhile, city officials have been struggling to go about the day-to-day business of running Pasadena while operating under an atmosphere of public mistrust generated by loosely knit groups of antagonistic citizens who have been angry with City Hall for nearly a year.

Their anger can be traced to last summer’s ill-fated assessment district hearings.

In June, the Board of City Directors tentatively approved a citywide assessment district that would have levied annual fees of up to $96.67 on the average single-family home over a 10-year period.

The assessment district was to have financed $17 million worth of repairs to sidewalks, curbs, gutters and street lights, but the idea created a political uproar.

More than 1,000 angry homeowners turned out for public hearings on the district, many screaming “Fire the bum!” at City Manager McIntyre and “Recall! Recall!” at the board.

Assessment Plan Dropped

City officials dropped the assessment district plan, but its specter continues to haunt the board. Most of the lingering hostility, however, has been focused on McIntyre, because he recommended the plan to city directors as the best way to finance street repairs. The repairs have been indefinitely postponed.

“There are obviously some people who think that I’m not doing a good job, and have expressed dissatisfaction with me and my performance,” McIntyre said in a recent interview. “That goes with the territory.

“I’m still here and apparently a majority of the board thinks I should continue. While it’s never comfortable when you’re in the position of receiving criticism, you’ve got to have a thick skin and a short memory in this business,” McIntyre added.

“It is very demoralizing for city staff to have to live through this,” said director Glickman. “It puts an air of uncertainty (over) everyone.”

Glickman and Heckman are McIntyre’s strongest supporters on the board. “I don’t think it is at all an indictment against Don,” Glickman said. “There always has to be a person or a thing to become the target.”

But the hostility toward McIntyre has come not only from citizens. Since the assessment district controversy, board members including Bogaard, Thomson, Hughston and Cole, have publicly criticized the work of city staff, which is overseen by McIntyre, the city’s most powerful non-elected official.

Asked to Retire

In January, during a closed executive session of the board, Cole, Bogaard and Hughston asked the 13-year city manager to retire, said board members who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

McIntyre told the board that he would not retire until asked to do so by a majority, the sources said. McIntyre refused comment on the incident, saying it is illegal to publicly disclose discussions held in executive session. Bogaard, Cole and Hughston also declined to comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with City Hall has also been expressed by other groups such as Pasadena: On the Move, which, like Citizens for Representative Government, sprang to life after the assessment district hearings, but takes a much less militant view of the city’s political leadership.

“There are those who just want to hang Don McIntyre from the first branch that will hold the weight” said Bill Fackler, president of the group of about a dozen members that frequently mails flyers protesting the actions of the board.

“We have not called for McIntyre’s hide,” Fackler said. “Our purpose is to act as a citizens group that is monitoring the city and its activities with a view to being a helpful force and a restraint on anything that’s not kosher.”

Fackler said his group’s goal is to establish a more cooperative relationship between city officials and the public. “There’s been too much confrontation between the various citizens groups and the civic leaders,” he said. “We don’t want to be confrontational.”

Vehement Opposition

Nonetheless, the group often voices vehement opposition to the actions of city officials. In March, the group mailed hundreds of letters urging residents to protest a proposed cultural-heritage ordinance that would have restricted alterations to all buildings more than 50 years old. The board later rejected the ordinance and opted instead for a much less stringent law to protect historically significant buildings.

But the proposed ordinance created a heated public controversy that once again saw angry citizens unleashing a flurry of criticism at city officials.

“It certainly didn’t help their image any,” said Nina Cash, a longtime City Hall watcher. Cash and Dona Mich, who frequently attends board meetings and often takes city directors to task, publish the City Hall Observer, a sassy, oftentimes irreverent newsletter that chronicles Pasadena’s political machinations.

Cash and Mich, both grandmothers who give their ages as “over 21 and under 75,” have been publishing their monthly newsletter since October. Both favor some major changes at City Hall. “I think you’ve got to cut it all out,” Mich said. “Get an entire new board and a get rid of a large portion of the upper echelon of city staff.”

And like almost all of those who are demanding change, Cash and Mich say the need for such action stems from the assessment district controversy.

“The way that was handled said to me that there was something wrong with the way that the city was being managed,” Cash said.