Carson Comes of Age : Whein it was incorporated 20 years ago, Carson was the county's 'garbage can,' dotted with junkyards and landfills. Today, it is trying to surmount fractious politics and industrial grit to grab a piece of the South Bay's boom pie.

By GEORGE STEIN

Feb. 21, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

In the 20 years since it became the 77th city in Los Angeles County, Carson has come a long way.

But while they herald the city’s accomplishments as the anniversary celebration begins this weekend, Carson’s leaders agree that it has a long way to go.

In 1968, the infant city had 76 junkyards, almost two dozen former landfills and several oil refineries that marred the landscape. The area was known as the “garbage can of Los Angeles County.” Much of the city flooded during rains. Its zoning was a mess.

Today, the major refineries remain, but a modern City Hall and Community Center stand where some junkyards used to be, and a city-sponsored hotel and office complex are under construction nearby. Drainage control has dried up the floods. Coherent patterns of zoning are in place.

Image Problem

Most officials, however, say the city still has an image problem, caused in part by its fractious politics and gritty industries.

During the next 20 years, officials hope that the city will become a participant in the South Bay’s rocketing economic growth--while eliminating the remaining eyesores.

“It is going to be a boom because of its closeness to the freeways, the airport and port,” said Mayor Kay Calas.

“It is going to bring a lot of activity to the area. . . . We are one of the few cities in the area that has land to build on and grow. If we plan it wisely, the city will prosper.”

Glenn Watson, who has been city attorney since incorporation, said Carson may even come to equal Torrance, its more affluent neighbor to the west, in terms of facilities and appearance. By 2010, the number of jobs in Carson is projected to increase by 54%, handily outpacing a projected 36% increase for the county as a whole, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Carson as a player in the global economy of the 21st Century is a far cry from its origins as part of Rancho San Pedro, a 1784 Spanish land grant.

The man who gave the city its name--George Henry Carson--came to Los Angeles in the mid-19th Century, was elected to the Los Angeles City Council and later was appointed public administrator for Los Angeles County. He married into the Dominguez family, which owned the land grant, and supervised the family land holdings and ranching operations.

During the 1920s, the discovery of oil transformed the sleepy area and set a pattern for development that remains today.

By 1926, five leading refineries were located in what is now Carson, making the area the largest refinery complex in the country at the time.

The oil refineries--and their pollution--prevented other types of development in the immediate area for many years.

“The oil refining and processing industry is not conducive to making property in the vicinity . . . attractive to any other type of industry for subdivision and living conditions. . . .,” according to a 1935 analysis prepared for the Watson Land Co., which owned much of the land in the area.

The area first began to be called Carson, probably in the 1930s, when the Pacific Electric Railroad named a stop after John M. Carson, son of George Henry.

It was not until after World War II that major housing developments began to go up and a conscious effort to promote the name originated.

In 1949, the area Chamber of Commerce began using the name “Carson” to gain an identity separate from other unincorporated communities, according to the late Jack E. Jerrils, former city historian and author of “The History of a City . . . Carson, California.”

By the end of the 1950s, county precinct maps labeled the community “Carson.”

The fight to incorporate the area began in 1958--a full 10 years before it succeeded--and quickly became enmeshed in controversy.

Casino Proposed

Joseph Asaro, the first promoter of the idea, proposed an irregularly shaped 1.8-square-mile city along Victoria Avenue between Avalon Boulevard and Figueroa Street. The new city was to be financed in part with revenues from a poker club.

Many were aghast. “Do you want to see your child in a swimming pool financed by poker chips?” one opponent asked at a meeting described in Jerrils’ book.

Asaro was hung in effigy and his proposal died. But the ideas he had set in motion remained.

During the next 10 years, the effort continued, suffering through a controversy over forged signatures and fighting off attempted annexations by Compton and Long Beach. Supporters proposed cities of different sizes, shapes and names. Carsolinguez-- a name that recognized both Carson and the adjacent Dominguez Hills area--was the most imaginative.

In 1965, while the incorporation drive was sputtering, a parallel movement to bring a state university to the South Bay succeeded, and California State University, Dominguez Hills, began to take shape.

On Jan. 25, the Goodyear blimp took up residence at a base at 19200 S. Main St., just north of the San Diego Freeway, and became a city landmark.

On Feb. 20, 1968, the vote for incorporation was 6,301 in favor and 3,394 opposed. As a name for the new city, “Carson” beat “Dominguez,” 4,754 to 4,436.

From a field of 45 candidates, John A. Marbut, John L. Junk, Sak Yamamoto, Gilbert D. Smith and H. Rick Clark won seats on the new city council.

“Hundreds of people were there,” said Watson. “Everybody had supporters there. It was an inspiring occasion for the city. They were very proud of it.”

Yet an analysis of the vote revealed a split between the north and south sides of the city that persists 20 years later.

“On incorporation, there was a division (the north was more in favor than the south), as there always has been since incorporation,” said Watson.

And, as events turned out, pride would turn to shame for four of the five members of Carson’s first City Council:

Junk and Clark were sentenced to 90-day jail terms and fined $1,500 after pleading no contest in 1971 to soliciting bribes from a trash disposal firm.

In 1979, Marbut and Yamamoto were ousted in a recall election, following charges that a trash contract was awarded without public comment to a company that had not submitted the lowest bid.

Scandal touched others in city government:

Councilman Dan Spence was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $2,000 in 1971 for soliciting a bribe in connection with a zoning matter. In 1986, Councilman Walter J. (Jake) Egan was convicted of extortion and mail fraud in connection with the W. Patrick Moriarty political corruption scandal and served nine months in a federal prison. And last year, City Administrator John Dangleis was forced out after allegedly steering lucrative city business to a friend and business associate.

Carson residents and officials are sensitive to the image that the scandals have created.

At a council meeting last year, for example, resident Weldon Jules said: “Unfortunately, and I’m sorry to say this--I’ve been here 15 years--the city of Carson has been under constant pressure for indictments, corruption, influence, probes, and when you say Watts and Compton, you also say Carson, and that is not right.”

Calas agreed.

‘Bad Publicity’

“I am very sorry to say that our image outside Carson isn’t very good,” the mayor said in an interview. “How many went to jail? How many were recalled? It has been bad publicity for the city. What’s the solution? I don’t know. I wish I knew. I would like to see the city settle down.”

But at the first council meeting, 20 years ago Saturday, those problems were in the future. The council chose Marbut, the top vote-getter, as mayor; named Watson, who had been attorney for the incorporation group, as city attorney; froze all changes in the zoning established by Los Angeles County, and adopted a city policy to annex several adjacent unincorporated areas.

Dick Gunnarson, the current city administrator, was named planning director, the second employee hired by the city. It was “one of the most gung-ho, let’s-do-it atmospheres I’ve ever had the privilege of working in,” he recalled in an interview.

Watson--the only official involved in the first council meeting to remain active in city politics--said the early days, while marred by “personal bickering” on the council, were also marked by “a unanimity toward aspirations for the new city.”

“They felt that the county had shafted the area,” he said. “We had 76 wrecking yards, something like 20 landfills, mostly closed, no post office. . . . There wasn’t even a shopping center.

“They were unanimous about the future of the city and, frankly, less divisive than in recent years. As it has matured, there has been more room for division.”

Carson officials moved the city’s offices three times in the first 19 months while planning a permanent location. In 1976, the City Hall now in use opened.

Throughout Carson’s history, political control of City Hall has shifted between north and south. In the north are well-off blacks and mobile home park dwellers, who vote in higher-than-average percentages. The south is populated primarily by Anglos, Latinos and Pacific Islanders, who generally have lower incomes and vote in smaller numbers.

At times, relations on the council have been strained. At Egan’s trial, his attorney described it as a “five-way dogfight.”

Said Calas: “A lot of it is personality conflicts. Some people want to be number one. . . . Some people thrive on conflict. They like war.”

In more restrained terms, Watson, whose firm represents 14 municipalities, said: “The Carson council is more political than most. . . . Looking to the past, there has been no progress on elimination of division. . . . That is not all bad. . . . The fact that it is so intense indicates an interest in doing something. . . . When you lay aside the division, the trend forward has been progressive on balance.”

Watson said he doubts that in the next 20 years Carson will follow the example of Torrance, where a fractious council and politicized city administration was replaced around 1970 by a political culture that rewards less confrontational tactics.

“I think Carson is more colorful,” Watson said, adding that the diversity of ethnic groups fosters divisions among council members. “In the future, I think they will tend to divide along their factional lines. . . . When Carson reaches the point that control of the city is not turning on every two years’ election, then it will subside.”

That point has not been reached.

On the current council, Sylvia Muise and Tom Mills, who live in north Carson, oppose Calas, Vera Robles DeWitt and Michael Mitoma, who live in the south or central portions of the city.

In the April 12 election, control could switch to the north. All three members of the southern group face reelection. One of the six challengers, Aaron Carter, lives in the north and is supported by Muise and Mills.

In addition to the usual political bickering among council members, Mitoma has sued Muise, Mills and several other political figures, alleging that they libeled him in a campaign brochure used in the 1986 election.

While the politicians wage their warfare, city plans for the future are moving ahead.

Pat Brown, director of community development, said the nucleus of a downtown area is forming around the complex that includes City Hall, the Community Center and the hotel and office complex under construction.

Developers are already talking about projects next to the hotel and office complex, and city officials expect that two large parcels of vacant land west of Avalon Boulevard will be developed with offices and restaurants in five to 10 years.

“You could call it downtown, if you will,” Brown said. “You will have some theaters.”

In addition, city officials expect that nearly 400 acres, scattered in six tracts, will be the focus of major redevelopment projects.

Former Refinery

One is a vacant 75-acre site near the Harbor Freeway south of Torrance Boulevard where the Golden Eagle refinery used to be.

In addition, said Redevelopment Director Adolfo Reyes, city officials expect that the Fletcher Oil refinery in the southern part of the city, faced with expensive requirements for air pollution equipment, will cease operations sometime in the next 20 years.

The giant Arco and Shell Oil refineries, however, will remain, Reyes said. “There is too heavy an investment. They will be there.”

Another major tract is the 157-acre Cal Compact site southeast of the intersection of the Harbor and San Diego freeways. It was once a landfill where oil drilling mud and other chemical waste was dumped. City officials expect it to be cleaned up within three years.

Other locations where chemical cleanups are required include the 90-acre John Mansfield site off 223rd Street north of Cormier Chevrolet, the 40-acre Stouffer Chemical site and 26 acres at two other sites.

The city also is studying zoning patterns in the 1,000-acre Redevelopment Area 1 in the northern part of the city, where industrial zones on small parcels have led to a plethora of requests for zoning variances from parking and landscaping requirements. In the south, a similar study is under way in the 600-acre Redevelopment Area 4.

Reyes said the study will almost certainly include recommendations that the city aid the formation of larger parcels, which make meeting development requirements easier.

Suitable Land Already Used

Housing patterns are not expected to change much, Brown said, because most of the land suitable for such development already has been built on.

“We are 95% built out,” he said.

However, 102 single-family homes are being planned on a 17-acre site just south of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

A number of transportation projects are expected to make life easier for Carson residents, particularly those in the eastern part of the city where truck and train traffic from the recently opened Intermodal Cargo Transfer Facility has been a source of complaints.

Public Works Director Harold Williams said an overpass taking Carson Street over Alameda Street and train tracks should be completed by 1991, and an overpass for Del Amo Boulevard is expected to be done by 1993. The two projects, funded by federal and port money, will cost between $20 million and $24 million.

The opening of the Century Freeway in 1993 is expected to ease traffic on the Artesia Freeway at the city’s northern border. Other major transportation projects that will affect Carson residents during the next 20 years include adding an elevated lane on the Harbor Freeway for buses and car pools; widening the Long Beach Freeway between the San Diego and San Bernardino freeways, improving the San Diego and Long Beach freeway interchange and widening Alameda Street to six lanes between the San Diego Freeway and Del Amo Boulevard.

CITY AT A GLANCE

The City of Carson was incorporated Feb. 20, 1968.

The man who gave the city its name, George Henry Carson, came to Los Angeles in the mid-19th Century. He was elected to the city council and later appointed public administrator for the county. He married into the Dominguez family, holder of an original land grant, and supervised their vast land and ranching operations.

Area: 19.2 square miles (8th largest in Los Angeles County, 2nd largest in the South Bay).

Population: 88,363 as of Jan., 1987 (14th largest in Los Angeles County, 3rd largest in the South Bay).

Race and Ethnic Breakdown: White, 42.3%; Black, 29.3%; Latino, 23.3%; Pacific Islander, 15.3%. (Figures add up to more than 100% because of dual classification.)

Jobs:

Total employed: 46,509

Housing:

Total units: 24,020

Single family: 18,585

Households: 23,176

Average household size: 3.7

Vacancy rate: 1.3%

Rental units: 22.5%

Income:

Median family (1983): $25,165

Persons in poverty: 7.6%