Courtesy a Casualty : City Manager in Middle as Torrance Council Chafes Under New Leadership

The honeymoon is over.

After priding themselves for many years on harmony, courtesy, and keeping the city’s dirty linen private, City Council members are increasingly argumentative among themselves at meetings and have publicly voiced displeasure with City Manager LeRoy Jackson.

“All you have to do is watch TV,” said first-year Councilwoman Dee Hardison, referring to the weekly live telecasts of council meetings on cable television. “It does not give the city a very good light. It’s kind of an awkward time.”

Because of its past tradition of keeping potentially embarrassing city matters private, many of those interviewed--council members, city officials, business representatives and presidents of homeowner groups were hesitant to discuss the apparent divisiveness among council members. Some would not comment; others would only talk if their names were not used.

Reasons for Change

Those interviewed gave at least four reasons for the changing character of the council:

- A new mayor, the first woman to hold that office, who is still not totally accepted by some male council members and who is replacing a strong, well-liked and respected mayor.

- A change in the makeup of the council; three of the seven members have served less than three years.

- A tight 1986-87 budget that forced council members to compete to get their pet projects funded.

- A shift from a pro-business to a pro-residential attitude that has been going on for three years but has intensified as new council members have been elected.

Sources close to the council have said some council members are chauvinistic and do not pay Mayor Katy Geissert the respect shown to the men on the council. Her efforts to run council meetings have been frequently challenged, something they said did not happen often while Jim Armstrong was mayor.

Regarding her sex, Geissert said, “That may be difficult for some people to deal with but I believe I have generally been accepted.”

Slow-Growth Shift

But it is the shift by the council to a slow-growth approach that began in 1984 that seems to be the biggest factor for the change in the council’s public image.

“There’s always been some conflict on the council,” said Michael Bedinger, an airport commissioner and president of the Council of Homeowners Assns. of Torrance, an umbrella group of homeowners groups. “But I think lately that the council that represents the Chamber (of Commerce) and commercial interests has been changed with people who represent the (pro-residential) interests. People who were on the winning side are now on the losing side.”

Barbara Honeycutt, president of the Southwood Assn., said she is concerned that the public disagreements could get out of hand.

“We don’t want a rubber-stamp council,” she said. “We can have constructive criticism.” She quoted a phrase often used by former Mayor Armstrong that “we can disagree but we don’t have to be disagreeable.”

Robert Seitz, Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce executive director, declined to comment, but another member of the business community expressed concern.

More Polarized

“The council seems more polarized than in previous years,” said the businessman, who asked that his name not be used. “The harmony that was there, the mutual respect that was there has dwindled. It seems no middle ground is being reached any more. It seems (issues) go one way or the other. That’s not only not good for the business community, I don’t think it’s good for the community in general.”

The disagreement over the city manager’s effectiveness, sources said, is the most visible example of maneuvering by council members to establish power.

The sources say the lines are drawn this way: Mayor Geissert and Hardison are Jackson’s strongest supporters and Councilmen Bill Applegate and Tim Mock are his strongest critics. Councilmen George Nakano, Mark Wirth and Dan Walker represent the middle ground.

Council members said the battle intensified early last month behind closed doors when a council committee on executive salaries--made up of Nakano, Mock and Applegate--recommended a 4% pay raise to all department managers except Jackson, whom they faulted on several counts. Jackson’s salary is $80,000 a year.

Caught Unawares

The recommendation to deny Jackson a raise caught Hardison, Wirth and Mayor Geissert unawares.

“It was a surprise to me,” said Hardison after the meeting. “I was not even aware that he was a concern. I thought it was very unfair.”

Walker said he was not surprised by the committee’s recommendation because he knew some committee members had reservations about Jackson’s performance.

The entire council met privately with Jackson this week to discuss their concerns.

And, after an executive session Tuesday, Jackson said the council had not completed its evaluation of him and would defer any action until the next meeting.

Sources said committee members have expressed several reservations about Jackson:

- What they called his lack of charisma and a penchant for wearing cowboy boots and loud ties, an image they said is unbefitting the South Bay’s largest city and the fourth largest in Los Angeles County.

- Having relatively young and inexperienced people on his staff.

- His refusal to hire an assistant to serve as his second in command.

- Complaints that he is creating low morale among city department heads who make up the executive staff by insisting that he be kept abreast of everything, including requisitions.

Members of the committee would not comment on their specific concerns, saying only that there are a number of them.

‘He Has Not Done It’

Mock, however, said, “We have discussed these problems with him in the past, and he has improved in some areas. But in the important areas--his relationship with department heads, with the council, with staff--he has not done it. We wanted to give him some incentive (and let him know) that we were serious about it.”

City Hall sources said that while Jackson’s choice of clothes has been a running joke since he was hired out of college in 1966 by the city Personnel Department, some council members expressed serious concern about the image Jackson projects when he represents the city at official functions or tries to attract businesses to Torrance.

Jackson said he accepts the ribbing, saying his boots and clothes reflect his nature and his upbringing in the Mojave Desert community of China Lake, the site of the Naval Weapons Center where his father once worked.

“I wear cowboy boots because they’re comfortable,” he said. “I’ve worn them as long as I can remember.”

Sources say Jackson is also being criticized by some council members and department heads for having a young staff, and for having three women--Kathy Keane and Liz Rojas from the city manager’s office and Personnel Director Elaine Winer--as the city’s negotiators with employee groups. Winer is the only woman department head in the city.

Youth a Problem

The sources say some department heads, most in their 40s and 50s--resent being told what to do by people in their 20s and 30s. Besides Keane, 37, and Rojas, 28, the other two members of the city manager’s office are Albert Ng, 52, and Rick Pickering, 27.

And, according to the sources, some department heads have been uncomfortable dealing with the women on Jackson’s staff.

Jackson said all the members of his staff, except Pickering, were on the city manager’s staff when he was promoted to that position.

He defended his hiring practices, however, saying the city manager’s office has traditionally had young people. He added that when he makes an appointment, he selects the most qualified person regardless of race, sex or religion.

“I was named city manager at 38, and my predecessor was city manager at 35,” Jackson said. “We have always had a tendency toward a young staff because it is a rough-and-tumble organization. You chew up a lot of staff. The department heads may not like them all, but I think they respect them.”

Fire Chief Criticized

Another complaint about Jackson has been that he caused low morale among his executive staff after he admonished Fire Chief Richard DeYoung in front of the other department heads for contradicting him at a council meeting.

“The feeling among some department heads was that if he can do that to DeYoung, he could do it to any one of them and they didn’t like that,” said a City Hall source who asked not to be identified.

Jackson said he does not think it is necessarily proper to admonish a manager in public but sometimes it has to be done, that’s part of management, he said.

Department heads have also complained about having to run everything by Jackson, a source said, “including when we want to order pencils.”

However, some council members and department heads deny that low morale is widespread.

“I have had extensive, private, confidential talks with the executive staff members and they have expressed a loyalty and general confidence in LeRoy,” Geissert said. “I have been around a long time and there are always grumbles.”

“My morale is not low,” said Police Chief Donald Nash. “There are complaints about a lot of people all the time.”

‘Different Styles’

“We’re made up of a lot of different people, we have different styles,” said Gene Barnett, director of parks and recreation. “Morale may be low for some, but not for others. We all have our day-to-day frustrations.”

Sources say a key to resolving the council’s concerns about Jackson is for him to hire an assistant, preferably someone older with experience in city government.

“LeRoy is an exceptionally talented individual, but he wants to do everything himself,” Walker said. “He’s at that point where he can’t any more. If any one of the council members became ill and couldn’t serve anymore, the city would continue to function. If the city manager had the same problem, it would be a disaster.”

While acknowledging that he enjoys having his hand in all city dealings, Jackson said there is a process to delegating responsibilities.

“Ed used to say that one can delegate responsibility, but one has to be careful not to abrogate those responsibilities,” Jackson said, quoting his predecessor, Edward J. Ferraro. “The city manager of Torrance has the most delegation of any city manager’s office anywhere.

Budget ‘Gatekeeper’

“I don’t get involved in the internal affairs of most departments. . . . That would not be the case in most cities. City managers in other cities have a strong administrative hand in the day-to-day operation of the city. This office is a facilitator of things and the gatekeeper of the budget.

“I’ve attempted to delegate on a regular basis as much as I feel comfortable with. Those things I don’t delegate, I wish to have an involvement for specific reasons. I wish to remain involved because there are concerns, or problems or details that are significant enough that the city manager should have a handle on.”

Jackson said that department heads and council members would probably be concerned if he were absent for an extended period and he put one of the younger assistants in charge. However, he said the city could function fine with Ng in charge.

The disagreement over Jackson is only the most recent example of the council’s new character, which became evident soon after the March municipal election in which the immensely popular Jim Armstrong, who had served two terms as mayor, could not seek reelection because of a City Charter prohibition against three-term mayors. Although elected separately, the mayor votes on all council issues.

There was speculation before the election that Applegate would challenge Geissert for mayor, in what many in the community saw as a potential battle between the interests of business, represented by Applegate, and those of residents, represented by Geissert.

Applegate Didn’t Run

That battle never happened because Applegate decided not run, citing personal and family reasons. City Hall observers, however, speculate that Applegate chose not run because he realized that he could not beat Geissert, who has been on the council since 1974 and has a strong base of support.

Sources say some of the shots expected in the campaign are now being seen in the weekly council meetings. Applegate and Geissert have been at odds a few times over various issues. Geissert has several times asked Applegate to limit his comments to the motion at hand, with Applegate responding each time that he was.

Applegate brushes off any assertion that there is bad blood between the two, saying it is simply a matter of a new person learning a new job. Geissert, who ended up running unopposed, said she is only doing her job of trying to keep the meetings moving.

Sources said that other signs of disharmony surfaced during the budget process. Despite an unofficial policy that department heads support the city manager’s proposed budget, some privately sought support for their projects from individual council members, creating tension among the executive staff and pitting council members against each other, the sources said.

Fire Station Dispute

During budget hearings in June, Applegate and Walker were constantly correcting each other’s “facts” in a discussion over whether backup men and equipment should be moved from a fire station in north Torrance to one in central Torrance.

“Jim (Armstrong) would not let those personalities clash,” said Honeycutt, of the Southwood Homeowners Assn. “He would have taken them aside and said let’s work those things out privately.”

Geissert said that she is still learning the mayor’s job and that she believes things will settle down.

As the newest member of the council, Hardison, who also was elected in March after serving on the Planning and Parks and Recreation commissions, said the changing character of the council makes her uneasy.

“We have different leadership after eight years,” she said. “There’s going to be some juggling around until we get comfortable with each other. But the bickering makes me uncomfortable. If we have differences, we should take care of them privately.”