Pilot of New Cities Takes Surprises in Stride at the Helm of Santa Clarita

Bright and early the day after the City of Santa Clarita was incorporated, interim City Manager E. Fredrick Bien trudged through a snowstorm bent on enforcing an ordinance forbidding the removal of oak trees.

Accompanied by two deputy sheriffs, Bien arrived at a construction site south of Hart Park in Newhall in time to save most of the 30 trees scheduled to be chopped down that day.

The night before, the City Council had met for the first time and unexpectedly imposed a 40-day moratorium on cutting down the oaks--trees that Santa Clarita residents have long fought to preserve. Councilman Carl Boyer III said he had heard from a constituent that numerous oak trees were slated to be removed the next day at a housing project on Wildwood Canyon Road in Newhall.

The council’s move came as a surprise to Bien, 65, a veteran administrator who has helped start the last four cities incorporated in Los Angeles County. The item was not on that night’s scheduled agenda.

Moreover, the City Council instructed Bien personally to enforce the moratorium rather than law enforcement officials, as is usually the case with city laws.

“That was a new experience,” Bien said. “I normally don’t start out like that. There were two people about ready to cut down the oaks, but we stopped them.”

After a 43-year career in public administration that has included jobs as the first city manager in seven cities, Bien has learned to take unexpected City Council actions in stride.

“Really, most things are pretty routine in the beginning,” he said. “But there always are a few surprises. That business with the oak trees was as unique an experience as I’ve had.”

Bien was the first city manager of Puyallup, Wash., and the California cities of Carson, Norwalk, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, West Hollywood and, now, Santa Clarita, which incorporated nearly two weeks ago.

Because of that record, the Santa Clarita City Council’s decision to lure him out of retirement was unanimous. Council members interviewed Bien and five other candidates shortly after voters approved the new city Nov. 3. On Dec. 15, Santa Clarita was incorporated, but Bien was on the job almost a month before then.

“We called him on a Wednesday night and told him he had the job,” Mayor Howard P. (Buck) McKeon said. “We asked him if he could start work the next day. He hesitated a minute and then said, ‘OK, but I kind of had some things planned. Can I have Friday off?’ Of course, we said he could.”

McKeon said Bien’s name came up time after time when the newly elected Santa Clarita council members called officials of other cities, the League of California Cities, Southern California Assn. of Governments and the Contract Cities Assn. of Southern California.

“I think we got the best man for the job,” said Councilwoman Jan Heidt, who headed Santa Clarita’s two-week search for an interim city manager.

None of the other finalists seemed surprised at Bien’s selection, McKeon said. “One of them told me, ‘I figured you’d pick him,’ ” he added.

Bien has had little help since he started the Santa Clarita job, where he also acts as city clerk and treasurer. He has two clerical workers assisting him, one of whom works part time. His salary is $7,000 a month plus a car allowance of $250 a month.

Borrowed Room Divider

Often, Bien himself answers the phone at the temporary City Hall, where he finds his only privacy behind a borrowed room divider.

“That’s 26111 Bouquet Canyon Road in Saugus,” he patiently tells a caller asking the city’s address. “That’s B-O-U-Q-U-E-T. That’s right. The address is Saugus, but that’s just the post office. It is the City of Santa Clarita.”

On the other side of the divider, a banker wanting to discuss temporary financing for the new city and a small developer with a zoning problem waited to have a word with Bien.

“It’s a typical day here,” he said.

Soon, Bien said, he will hire a deputy city clerk, an executive secretary, an administrative assistant, two clerk-typists and a receptionist. Then, he said, city business will move faster.

‘Itching to Get Going’

“Things seem to be moving awfully slowly,” he said. “I’m itching to get going here. I see needs the City Council is reaching for, and I can’t provide them. It’s not their fault. They’re moving as fast as they can.”

For example, Bien said, the City Council agendas are inadequate because they contain no background reports and aren’t prepared soon enough.

“That bothers me,” he said. “But I have no bodies to do the things that are needed. Real agenda preparation takes 16 to 24 hours of very intense work by many bodies. I do hope to have that under control by the Jan. 14 meeting.”

Bien’s career as a one-man industry specializing in helping cities got started after his retirement from Carson in 1981. He left Carson amid a political scandal that involved W. Patrick Moriarty, a fireworks magnate and developer, and former Carson City Councilman Walter J. (Jake) Egan. Both are serving jail terms after being convicted in 1983 of political corruption and mail fraud in connection with a mobile-home park and other developments that Moriarty wanted to build.

The Carson City Council let Bien know that his services were no longer wanted when, he said, he wouldn’t approve the developments Moriarty wanted to put up. Beyond that, Bien refused to discuss the Moriarty affair.

“I retired from Carson,” he said. “That’s all.”

Since then, the indefatigable Bien has “retired” at least three times.

Whenever a city incorporates in Los Angeles County, he is almost inevitably called back into service. And Bien can’t resist answering the call because, he said, starting cities is exciting. He has started other new cities in his career and remained in the city manager’s job for several years after. Now, he stays only until a permanent city manager can be found, a process that usually takes between six months and a year.

“We couldn’t have gotten a better person to help us get started than Fred Bien,” said Ernest Dynda, a member of the first Agoura Hills City Council. “He’s a no-nonsense type and an expert in municipal government. If anybody were to write a book on how to run a city, Fred would be the one to do it.”

Agoura Hills Councilwoman Fran Pavley agreed.

‘Knows How to Start’

“There aren’t any books or people to turn to after you incorporate,” she said. “Having someone step in who really knows the ropes was just great. He knows how to start from square one, where you don’t have a chair, you don’t have a phone.”

Pavley has served on the Agoura Hills council since the city’s inception in December, 1982. She described Bien as “a very patient person” when novice council members and the public asked questions that other professional managers “might consider ridiculous.”

Bien has a “traditional and conservative approach” to municipal government, Pavley said, adding, “That was what we needed at the time.”

Bien describes his work as being “in a building mode, rather than in a maintenance mode. My interest is in creating, not in maintaining.”

He has also served as city manager of Monterey Park and as interim city manager of San Fernando--jobs he said were in the “maintenance mode.”

Came About by Chance

He said his work with new cities came about by chance.

“It was just circumstances,” Bien said. “It just happened to work that way.”

Shortly after he retired from Carson, Westlake Village was incorporated.

“I was running my own consulting firm and I got hired there,” Bien said. “I was there about six months when the City of San Fernando wanted an interim city manager. Practically the day I finished there, Agoura Hills was incorporated. I stayed there a year.

“I spent one year in retirement. Then, West Hollywood came along. I was there six months and retired again. Then, the City of Santa Clarita voted for incorporation and here I am.”

Santa Clarita’s elaborate incorporation ritual was, in his words, “exceptionally well-done. It was dignified. I feel strongly about the importance of government. It was good for the new city and for the people to actually see something there.

“If I have any philosophy, it’s a deep and passionate belief in people and their ability to govern themselves,” he added. “The real representative of the people is the City Council. People find the realization of their hopes and needs through the City Council. The city manager and the staff are simply the tools used. We’re here to serve.”

He commutes at least an hour to Santa Clarita. He lives in Carson with Barbara, his wife of 42 years.

Each city he has helped start is unique, he said. “A city is intense, like a family. But each is different.”

All cities, however, incorporate for much the same reason, the Kansas native said. They want to control their planning and the revenue produced within the community.

Agrarian Cities

West Hollywood, he said, “was a dense, urban city, a downtown city. Agoura Hills and Santa Clarita are agrarian. And, by that, I don’t mean agricultural. It’s just that their problems are isolated within the community.”

Agoura Hills was “pretty routine,” Bien said. “Westlake Village is a very quiet community. The general plan was all worked out before they incorporated.”

On the other hand, he said, in Norwalk, he supervised the development of a master plan for the city, building of a city hall, addition of a county courthouse and massive street widening and other projects. He was in Norwalk for 11 years.

“Things take place very slowly,” Bien said. “You have to do one project at a time. You plan what you’re going to do. Within 20 years, you’ve renovated a whole community.”

In Santa Clarita, he said, the job will be “pretty much capital planning,” such as budgeting, city improvements and other services. “Next, we’re hiring a planning consultant to write the general plan that will be more focused than the county’s plan for the community.

“I’ll stay here as long as I’m needed,” he added.