Town of 1,000 Awash in Money : Irwindale--From Pits to ‘Big Leagues’

After suffering years of indignity for living in “the gravel pit capital of Southern California,” Linda Merez and Brenda Marin, lifelong residents of Irwindale, couldn’t help but gloating.

“When I was little, people asked me where I lived. I said, ‘Irwindale,’ and they would laugh,” recalled Marin, 33, standing smug in front of reporters Friday. “But now that the Raiders are coming, it makes us something. It means prestige.”

At City Hall on Friday, there were endless calls of congratulations. Developers suddenly wanted to build hotels. And residents were besieged by crews from network, local and Spanish-language television, all trying to capture the flavor of the little San Gabriel Valley town that had somehow landed professional football’s most winning team.

It was all pretty heady stuff for a city with just over 1,000 residents, four powerful families, 18 police officers, one restaurant and no shopping center. Long maligned for its endless gravel pits that have provided the concrete for Southern California’s vast development, Irwindale was glowing with vindication after Thursday’s agreement to build a 65,000-seat stadium for the Los Angeles Raiders.

In an improbable scenario, Irwindale will loan the Raiders $115 million--$10 million of it in forfeitable cash already advanced--to build the stadium, team headquarters, practice field and a Raiders Hall of Fame. The facilities are expected to be completed in time for the 1990-91 season.

“It will be the finest football stadium in the country,” said Fred Lyte, consultant to the city’s redevelopment agency who headed the stadium negotiations. “It’s a big moment for us. It puts us in the big leagues.”

Before the Raiders, this city had one previous brush with national attention, an embarrassing affair that became known as the “spiked enchilada caper.” In 1972, in an unsuccessful attempt to blackmail then-Mayor Richard Diaz into supporting legalized gambling, political opponents fed him a plate of drug-soaked enchiladas and posed him in compromising positions beside a nude woman. A city councilman involved in the plot was recalled and three others either pleaded guilty or were convicted.

City leaders say that is all in the past, choosing instead to focus on what they regard as an incredible transformation of their pockmarked town 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Irwindale, they say, had arrived long before the Raiders coup.

After forming a redevelopment agency in 1976, the city began aggressively wooing industry and corporate headquarters at a phenomenal pace. First came Miller Brewing Co., which Irwindale took (some people say stole) from nearby Azusa in 1978. Then big-time developers began approaching the city with projects that included major industrial parks and high-tech centers. Today, Irwindale is the corporate headquarters for Home Savings & Loan, a distribution center for Toys R Us and an overseas manufacturing plant for Q&B; Foods of Japan.

Land Values Increase

During that time, Lyte said, city and redevelopment agency coffers have swelled from $25,000 to over $35 million. Land values have appreciated twelve-fold, from $25,000 an acre to $300,000.

“We took property where people were growing mushrooms with pig manure and turned it into an industrial park,” Lyte said. “We turned a go-cart track into a high-tech manufacturing plant.”

Irwindale is so awash in money that city officials have scrambled to find a way to spend it, often with humorous consequences. The city, always searching for ways to beautify itself, is spending $1.5 million to bury electrical power lines along two main thoroughfares. City officials got local industry to plant three acres of wildflowers in the heart of town across from an old taco and burger stand.

Last year, the city completed a sparkling, Spanish motif Chamber of Commerce and senior citizens’ center that much of the time stands empty. Residents joke that there are only a handful of seniors in town to fill the $2.5-million structure.

In fact, residents here consider themselves downright pampered. Every homeowner in town is eligible to receive a $10,000 outright grant to make home improvements. More than half the homeowners have taken advantage of the program. The city pays all optical expenses for residents, and plans are in the works to pay major medical, dental and prescription drug costs. Breakfast is free for seniors on Fridays, and all programs at the senior citizens’ center are paid for by the city.

Lack of Housing

A number of city workers living outside Irwindale have tried to move here but are frustrated by a lack of available housing. The city has broken ground on 26 new homes and plans to build another 20 late this year, available to local residents and family members at sharply reduced costs.

“Everyone takes advantage of it. It’s free money. Why not take it?” asked Gilbert Burrola, 22, who was listening to tunes outside his 1962 Chevy Supersport. “But it’s not all fun living here. Everyone knows everyone. There’s no hiding. They even know your criminal record.”

The huge bankroll has allowed Irwindale to play by its own rules, disdaining the convention that governs its big-city neighbors. This can be a virtue, evidenced by the Raiders deal and the completion earlier this year of a $2.7-million seafood restaurant and bar built and financed by the city. Or it can be a vice, as shown by Irwindale’s failure to deal with repeated charges of nepotism.

Four powerful Latino families--the Mirandas, Brecedas, Barbosas and Diazes--have run this city for decades and account for much of its population. City personnel, at times, take on the appearance of one big extended household. For example, the police chief, Julian Miranda, is the brother of Pat Miranda, a longtime councilman. Pat Miranda’s daughter, Sandra Pusey, works as the administrative assistant to the police chief.

When asked last year about the arrangement, Pat Miranda responded:

“In Irwindale, we don’t see that as nepotism because we’re all family.”