Pomona Pins Hopes for a Turnaround on New Chief

When the City Council hired A.J. Wilson as city administrator, it wasn’t looking for a bureaucratic caretaker.

“I think we’re looking for the messiah, to tell you the truth,” said Councilman C.L. (Clay) Bryant.

Among the tasks facing Wilson, who assumed the post full time nine days ago, is reorganizing the city’s budget so there will be fewer potholes in the streets and more policeman patrolling them. But Wilson is also expected to cut the city’s unpopular 11% utility tax.

“I don’t believe problems are insurmountable,” Wilson said in a recent interview. “There’s nothing about turning around Pomona that is in any way impossible.”

Wilson, 46, has a reputation in cities where he has worked as a forceful leader who can find novel solutions for longstanding problems of urban decay and economic stagnation and make people believe in the untapped potential of their cities.

However, the surge of optimism surrounding Wilson’s arrival in Pomona partially parallels in some ways his most recent--and least successful--stint in government. As the newly hired city manager of Kansas City, Mo., Wilson was greeted with hoopla and high expectations. After 14 tumultuous months, he resigned under pressure in 1984.

“I think the council expected when they hired A.J. to have a man for all seasons to take care of all their problems,” said Kansas City attorney Jerry Riffel, who served on the council from 1979 to 1987. “When he couldn’t match their expectations, they turned against him.”

Councilman Bob Lewellyn, one of Wilson’s more strident critics in Kansas City, concurred that one of Wilson’s difficulties was the city’s unrealistic expectations, but said the problem was largely of Wilson’s own making.

“I think they expected him to walk on water,” Lewellyn said. “That’s how he sold himself. And when he wasn’t able to deliver all the miracles, people were disenchanted. . . . I didn’t think he would make it. I saw in him more of the salesman than the administrator. It took a year for that to sink in for the other people on the council.”

If Wilson is a salesman, he is taking a soft-sell approach in Pomona. Although he preaches confidence and optimism, his sermon is tempered by the caveat that changing the city’s course will require a great deal of time, effort and cooperation. The council, he said, understands this and is not expecting pie in the sky.

“I’m not a miracle worker,” Wilson said. “I’m a good problem solver and I think I’ll be able to solve some of these problems. I’ll be limited to the extent that some forces in the community support that, so we’ve got to be clear: It’s not me doing it, it’s me being a participant in people doing it together.”

Pomona Mayor Donna Smith said she realizes that problems that have developed in Pomona over decades cannot be remedied overnight. Nonetheless, she said, considering Wilson’s background and the city’s predicament, it is difficult not to expect a lot.

“I have some high expectations,” Smith said. “I believe that he has encountered in his past positions some of the challenges Pomona is facing right now, and he approached those challenges head-on and he was able to turn things around, and I would expect the same here.

“His first evaluation is in August, so he doesn’t have much time,” Smith added. “If he’s going to re-establish himself in the city administrator profession, all eyes are on Pomona.”

Wilson’s almost 20 years in government include successful stints overseeing the administrations of Santa Ana, Portland, Me., and his hometown of St. Louis.

Glowing Appraisals

Officials in Santa Ana and Portland give glowing appraisals of Wilson’s work, crediting him with sparking a commercial renaissance in those cities. Adjectives such as “intelligent,” “forceful” and “sincere” cropped up repeatedly in their descriptions of him.

“I think he did more for Santa Ana than just about anybody in the last 25 years,” said Councilman Wilson Hart, who was president of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce in 1982, when Wilson was city manager. “A.J.’s one of the most brilliant guys I’ve ever encountered and I’ve met some pretty smart folks.”

But even Wilson’s admirers concede that his “assertive” managerial style can rub some people the wrong way. The antithesis of a faceless bureaucrat, the charismatic Wilson has also been criticized by some elected officials for being too “visible.”

“A lot of people didn’t agree with his philosophy and he didn’t want to bend particularly, and that’s where he got into hot water,” said former Santa Ana Councilman R.W. Luxembourger.

The key to Wilson’s success, his admirers say, is his ability to pump up city officials, outside developers, businessmen and residents with enthusiasm about their community. “I once heard him likened to a rocket,” Hart said. “He’s the booster that gets you off the pad. It’s all noise and rattle and fire and smoke, but it breaks gravity and gets you off the ground.”

If the analogy is apt, Wilson is already trying to break gravity in Pomona.

Developing a Strategy

“We’ve got to believe more in ourselves and we’ve got to come up with a strategy that takes us where we want to go,” Wilson said. “I don’t care how many people tell us we’re not that good, it’s simply not the case. We’ll be as good as we make ourselves.”

Wilson is also trying to change some of the council’s assumptions about planning and development.

Although the council has traditionally opposed multifamily housing, Wilson argues that well-planned apartment complexes can bring revenue without overburdening city services.

And although council members have viewed the Inland Pacific World Trade Center or a regional shopping center as the first major step toward economic revitalization, Wilson said the city may see results sooner if it emphasizes high-volume commercial developments in areas near the Price Club store.

Growing up in South St. Louis, Arnold Jesse Wilson was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister at age 18 and aspired to be a professor of theology. At William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., he became a national debating champion while majoring in psychology and philosophy.

More Secular Service

While attending Yale Divinity School in the mid-1960s, Wilson began leaning toward a more secular form of service. He moved his family into an apartment in an urban renewal area of New Haven.

“I became active in city affairs and discovered that’s what I love to do,” Wilson said, adding that New Haven was the breeding ground for redevelopment strategies that later became part of the War on Poverty.

After a brief stint working for an office design business owned by his wife’s family in St. Louis, Wilson quickly gravitated to work in city government. By 1971 he had worked his way up to being one of two top administrators assisting the mayor of St. Louis, a post he held for five years.

“I started that job when I was 29 years old,” said Wilson, who helped supervise the administration of a city of 625,000 with a budget of $200 million. “When you start that early in life in that position, you’ve almost got nowhere to go. So when I went back to Portland, it was because I wanted to go back to New England.”

Although Portland had one-tenth the population of St. Louis, it did have a city manager form of government, providing Wilson with greater leverage to implement his policies.

Jobless Rate Dropped

While city manager, Wilson oversaw the development of a commercial fishing pier complex viewed by city officials as a boon to Portland’s economy. He also organized programs to retrain and place unemployed workers, helping Portland to be designated as one of 14 model cities nationwide in job training. During his tenure, the city’s unemployment rate dropped from 11% to 5.8%, compared to national rates of 7.7% in 1976 and 7.1% in 1980.

“I remember him as being very dynamic, bringing in new ideas, having a broad national vision of what was going on,” said Portland Councilwoman Pamela Plumb. “He did not envision the city manager as being a caretaker.”

By 1980, Wilson wanted to move to Southern California and heard of an opening in Santa Ana, a city that had been bypassed by much of the burgeoning development in Orange County.

He brought to Santa Ana a plan to revitalize the city through improving redevelopment and stressing the need for high-volume commercial projects. Wilson aggressively lobbied the council on these proposals, cajoling Santa Ana into what some officials said was a much-need period of change.

Downtown Renewal

During his three years in Santa Ana, Wilson oversaw a downtown renewal program that involved hundreds of thousands of square feet in new construction and a $20-million program to rehabilitate older commercial areas.

“Santa Ana wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for A.J. Wilson,” said former Councilman P. Lee Johnson. “He had the (courage) to stand up and say, ‘This place is a slum and you’ve got to do something about it.’ ”

But Santa Ana Councilman John Acosta, who frequently found himself at odds with the council majority, disputed Wilson’s impact.

“He takes credit for the redevelopment in Santa Ana,” Acosta said. “I would say redevelopment was going on before he got here. If anything he was a small piece in the puzzle.”

Hart, who viewed Wilson’s tenure from the perspective of the Chamber of Commerce, said the city manager’s style was perceived as abrasive by some.

“It’s a fact that he rubs some people the wrong way,” Hart said. “I don’t think that would be an issue for him if he were in the private sector, but I know he had some problems in Kansas City and I think he had some problems in Santa Ana, too. . . . He was a guy who was so intimidating that people wouldn’t speak up. But after he was gone, I started hearing whispers of discontent.”

‘Time to Move On’

Although Wilson was not asked to leave Santa Ana, some on the council indicated that they thought it was best that he did so.

“I think A.J. knew when it was time to move on,” Luxembourger said.

Upon his arrival in Kansas City, Wilson was met with a barrage of publicity hailing him as a favorite son of Missouri, returning home to help lead the state’s second-largest city to pre-eminence.

“You would have thought he was John Wayne when he got here,” said Riffel, who was on the council when Wilson arrived. “He was big, big news. I think that tended to magnify the problems.”

The council had hired Wilson in part to help convince Kansas City businesses and residents of the city’s potential. Wilson spoke frequently to organizations and neighborhood groups. But in the process, council members said, he led some local politicians to believe they were being upstaged.

“He was very visible,” Councilwoman Joanne Collins said. “I think several of the council members found that they didn’t like that.”

Publicity a Problem

Wilson, who stressed that he sees no need for such a public role in Pomona, acknowledged that the glut of advance publicity, coupled with his high visibility, was a problem in Kansas City.

During his tenure in Kansas City, Wilson gradually alienated the majority of the 13-member council. His opponents on the council criticized his autonomous administrative style and his high public profile. The business community vigorously opposed an agreement he reached with the city’s firefighters. After his resignation, one council member described Wilson as “a walking faux pas.”

Press coverage of Wilson became increasingly unfavorable. In one highly publicized controversy, it was disclosed that Wilson had spent more than $10,000 to redecorate his City Hall office, including $4,375 for new furniture that was purchased without competitive bidding, as required by the City Charter.

“It was pretty much a crisis,” Riffel said.

No action was ever taken against Wilson and he said it was largely a media-created issue.

“You know what that was about?” Wilson asked rhetorically. “Two chairs and a couch! It ran (in the newspaper) for three weeks.”

Firefighters Agreement

Wilson’s days began to appear numbered, council members said, after he reached tentative agreement with a union representing the city’s firefighters calling for a 24% wage increase over 26 months. Council members said the deal was offered to the union before it could be ratified by the council.

“While the firemen jumped for joy in the streets, how could we turn him (Wilson) down?” Lewellyn said.

Council members said Wilson was on the verge of being fired at his annual evaluation in November, 1984, when he resigned. The council voted, 10 to 3, to accept his resignation.

After more than three years, officials in Kansas City have mellowed in their criticism of Wilson.

“I think he was a victim,” Riffel said. “A.J.’s entry into Kansas City politics came at a time when just about any city manager would have self-destructed.”

Asked about his experiences in Kansas City, Wilson expressed frustration with a city administration he said was fraught with corruption and political entrenchment.

“There was a just gigantic set of political agendas and people that wanted me to do some things I was not willing to do,” Wilson said. “For example, a council member wanted me to hire a friend of his as a department head. I did not do that and he began to work against me and make life miserable for me.”

Council ‘at War’

Believing he had been given a mandate for sweeping change, Wilson said he instead found his efforts stymied by council members who were “at war with each other.”

“While I tried to be a catalyst to bring that group together, for some reason I wasn’t successful.”

After vying unsuccessfully for city manager jobs in San Diego and Miami, Wilson moved to Fallbrook, Calif., to start Wilson Communications, a consulting firm that advises corporations and governments on the organization, training and evaluation of managers.

Wilson had spent three years out of the fray of city government when the search firm of Korn/Ferry contacted him about the administrator job in Pomona.

Happily ensconced with his family at their two-acre home in Fallbrook, established in his business and free to take time off to indulge his love of golf and skiing, Wilson said he wasn’t sure he wanted to accept a full-time public administration job again.

Wilson eventually decided to come to Pomona after receiving commitments that he would earn an ample salary (his yearly pay and benefits will jump to $125,000 in July), be able to continue his business in his spare time and--most important, he said--the council would support his efforts to rebuild the city economically.

Working Relationship

“I’m as much concerned about the positive working relationship as I am about how much I’m being paid,” Wilson said.

Wilson said he is not concerned about the apparent fractiousness of the Pomona City Council, whose discussions are often punctuated by personal clashes between Smith and Bryant.

“I have a belief that when people don’t get well-focused on the problems, they focus on personal conflict,” Wilson said. “And so my hope is the more we begin to focus on how to solve the problems, the less personal conflicts you’ll see among the council members.”

After he was hired Feb. 1, Wilson served two months in tandem with interim administrator Marshall Julian. Over the next few months, Wilson will report to the council on his strategies to reorganize the city’s budget, salvage major redevelopment projects such as the proposed Inland Pacific World Trade Center and reduce the utility tax.

Wilson, as always, is confident.

“I think there have been a number of things that haven’t been changed too much around here that hopefully we will change,” Wilson said. “And we’ll bring some new energy to some of these tasks and maybe we’ll do better.”