San Dimas Mayoral Race Turns From ‘Free Ride’ to Fight

After spending 12 years on the City Council, Terry Dipple thought the time was right to make another run for mayor.

Popular incumbent Mayor Don Haefer, who had twice run unopposed, announced that he would not be seeking reelection. Curt Morris, a councilman with six years’ tenure, expressed no desire to run for the office.

It seemed likely that Dipple, 35, who lost the 1982 mayoral race by 26 votes, would be able to run in the April 12 election without having to face a well-known, experienced opponent.

But Sandy McHenry, another of Dipple’s council colleagues, said he didn’t like that idea. McHenry, 39, a former planning commissioner elected to the City Council in 1986, said voters should be able to choose between two experienced candidates.

‘Back-Room Deals’

“It didn’t necessarily make sense for someone to run unopposed and get a free ride,” McHenry said. “I don’t think that’s what the voters had in mind when they decided to have a direct election for mayor. I don’t think they wanted any back-room deals by the council.”

McHenry made his intentions known in January with prominent ads in local newspapers. Dipple made his displeasure known in no uncertain terms.

“For me, the election is all or nothing,” Dipple said. “I’m at the end of my council term, as opposed to Sandy McHenry, who has a free ride. He has two years left in his term. He’s going to be on the council no matter what. The way I look at it, it takes a lot more courage to run for mayor when you’re at the end of your term.”

Also running for mayor on the April 12 ballot is Crescentia Bracci, who ran unsuccessfully for the council in 1982. Bracci, 44, has stayed out of the fray between the two councilmen, and both Dipple and McHenry said they regard the mayoral campaign as a two-man race.

McHenry has accused Dipple of trying to strike a bargain with him to persuade him not to run.

“He suggested that I not run and that he would support me if I ran later on,” McHenry said. “I told him that back-room deal-making is not my style. I believe in doing business under the bright lights so that everyone can see what you’re doing.”

Dipple said he was surprised that McHenry was running for mayor, claiming that two years ago McHenry had urged him to run against Haefer. Dipple said he had agreed with Haefer not to run for mayor in 1986, but denied trying to make a similar arrangement with McHenry.

“There was no deal,” Dipple said. “I think I might have told him that he had been on the council a short time and that I didn’t want to be mayor forever. I wanted the opportunity to serve perhaps a term or two and then retire from the City Council.”

The personal enmity between Dipple and McHenry is the most contentious aspect of this year’s campaign, in which there is widespread agreement on the key issues.

The three mayoral candidates all favor controlled development and oppose the county’s plans to build a large hotel and recreational complex at Frank G. Bonelli Park.

The race for the two open council seats, in which incumbent Morris faces challengers Denis Bertone and Ed Jones, is also free of any deep philosophical rifts.

The overriding issue is not whether the city should pursue slow-growth policies but which candidate can best maintain controlled development in San Dimas and preserve the community’s unique appearance.

Bounded on the north and south by the Foothill and San Bernardino freeways, this city of 29,000 has sought to distinguish itself from neighboring communities such as Pomona, La Verne and Glendora by cultivating an Old West image.

Downtown commercial developments must conform to a “frontier” motif. Bonita Avenue, the city’s primary thoroughfare, has been fashioned to resemble the main street of a 19th-Century Western town, complete with wooden sidewalks. Many of the upscale housing tracts constructed on the outskirts of town feature equestrian trails.

A survey of the candidates disclosed a striking similarity in ideas, with most of the debate centering on questions of experience, personal style and long-range vision of the city’s future.

Bracci acknowledged that she lacks the council experience and name recognition of the other mayoral candidates and said she has no major disagreements with the way the current council has been running the city. But Bracci, who conducts personal growth seminars, said her positive perspective would be a valuable addition to the council.

“I believe the thing I can bring personally is new blood,” she said. “I have lots of fresh ideas. . . . I’m a visionary, and I think I can offer them visions into areas where they wouldn’t think to tread. I always want to look for that win-win situation.”

Bracci said she tries to teach people who attend her seminars to “strategize,” or prepare a plan of action for the future. City officials could gain by taking a similarly far-sighted approach, she said.

“We’ve kind of run things by the seat of the pants as each issue has come up and have not really done a lot of long-range planning,” she said.

On the issue of Bonelli Park, where the county plans to develop a lodge, chalets and a restaurant, Bracci said the city should consider legal action to block the project. Dipple and McHenry have both voted to oppose the county’s plans for Bonelli Park, but both have been reluctant to vote to have the city sue the county, a move they say could prove costly and futile.

“I’m pretty much of a fighter,” Bracci said. “And if I think the citizens really wanted to fight it, I wouldn’t be afraid of a lawsuit.”

McHenry, owner of McHenry Greenhouses in San Dimas, said he was among the first on the council to oppose the county’s plans to commercialize the park.

“I remember making a motion to move in opposition to Bonelli, and after I got a second from (Councilwoman) Maria Tortorelli, I couldn’t get a third vote,” he said.

Although Dipple has been on the council a decade longer, McHenry argued that his own experience as a businessman, a planning commissioner and a member of the Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors gives him a broader background.

“I think sometimes a variety of experience is better than a lot of one type of experience,” McHenry said.

McHenry has also questioned the propriety of Dipple, whose firm advises property owners trying to develop their land, becoming mayor.

“My opponent works as a consultant to developers,” McHenry said. “I’ve told Terry point blank: ‘You’re in the wrong business to be mayor.’ He didn’t seem have a problem with it. . . . That’s something voters will have to look at.”

Dipple said his consulting business is not an issue in the campaign because he has never been involved with a project in San Dimas and he does not work with developers.

“I work with the small individual who does not have the capability to have a full-time staff person to help them process a plan through the city,” Dipple said. “If anything, it gives me the advantage of knowing what I (as a council member) can get out of a developer and how far I can push.”

Dipple, who was first elected to the council as a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of La Verne, said he has a lengthy record as a slow-growth advocate.

“When I first got on the City Council, the city was projected to have between 75,000 and 80,000 people when it was fully developed in accordance with the general plan,” Dipple said. “I didn’t feel that was acceptable. . . . I envisioned it as a small residential community.”

To prevent such an increase in population, Dipple worked to downzone much of San Dimas’ residential property, lowering the maximum allowable density to limit the construction of apartments and condominiums and encourage the building of single-family homes.

Asked whether his philosophy on how the city should be run differed from McHenry’s, Dipple replied: “Sandy’s been on the council for two years, and I don’t think during those two years he’s established any track record which would enable me to answer that question.”

Morris, 51, an attorney, has been on the council since 1982. He said the council has done a good job managing growth in San Dimas. He views waste management and tight budgets as the most serious challenges facing the city.

Like the rest of the council, Morris opposes commercial development at Bonelli Park, but he rejects the idea of suing the county to block the plan. Morris said he also favors slow growth but does not believe that the matter is as serious as some other candidates say.

“I don’t think (growth) is a major issue because I don’t think we have that much land left to develop,” Morris said.

He added that he is also not that worried about development of Bonelli Park. “I guess one of the reasons I’m not as concerned about it is I don’t think there’s a chance that any hotel operator is going to build a hotel or chalets there.”

Bertone, 46, co-founder of the Coalition to Save Bonelli Park, argued that the city is not doing enough to fight development there. Although the current council is reluctant to take legal action against another level of government, Bertone said, the city has legal grounds to sue the county when it is acting in a proprietary capacity as developer of the park project.

“The City of San Dimas has the power to stop most of the development the county is proposing,” he said.

A high school counselor, member of the Audubon Society and recipient of the Sierra Club’s 1987 Conservation Award, Bertone said the council should become more “environmentally conscious” and work more aggressively to achieve “well-planned, sensitive, slow growth.”

“I would like to see more concern about the aesthetics of the community,” Bertone said, adding that the council should also become more involved in regional environmental issues.

Jones, 37, a marketing manager with a firm in the City of Industry, said he wants the city to confront the issues of growth, public safety and economic development.

Although he advocates “very cautious growth,” Jones said he would like to see the construction of more modestly priced housing “instead of just the high-dollar homes.” Jones said he also favors more commercial development downtown and more light industry in San Dimas.

In his ballot statement, Jones argued that commuters living in this bedroom community can become complacent about regional problems such as crime and rampant development.

“Many of the residents of San Dimas are living within a comfort zone,” he said in the statement. “When they return home after a day’s work, they feel secure, relaxed and self-assured that many of the concerns they see on their daily commute do not occur in San Dimas.”

Council members have also been prone to this complacency, Jones said, arguing that the city needs to “hit problems head-on.”

“At times I feel the motto of the City Council is that procrastination is the key to flexibility,” he said.

THE CANDIDATES The three candidates for mayor in the April 12 race are:

Terry Dipple, 35, a councilman for 12 years, a consultant to property owners.

Sandy McHenry, 39, a councilman for two years, an owner of greenhouses.

Crescentia Bracci, 44, conducts personal growth seminars, ran for council in 1982.

The three candidates running for two open council seats:

Incumbent Curt Morris, 51, a councilman for six years, is an attorney.

Denis Bertone, 46, is a high school counselor.

Ed Jones, 37, is a marketing manager.