Bodley, Glenn Take Council Seats : Win by Slow-Growther Startles Glendora

Before Tuesday’s election, most longtime observers of local politics gave David Bodley little chance of winning a seat on the City Council.

Bodley was an unknown, the candidate of Glendora Pride, a recently formed citizens slow-growth group. With no prior name recognition, Bodley had to vie for one of two open seats against three-term incumbent John Gordon and Planning Commissioner Larry Glenn, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

But Bodley did win a seat, receiving 1,921 votes, or 27.3% of those cast, to finish second behind Glenn, who had 1,974 votes, or 28.1%.

Gordon lost his council seat by 58 votes, receiving 1,863, or 26.6%. Diane Vivian, who had also run on a slow-growth platform, finished last with 1,266 votes, or 18%.

Mixed Reactions

Former Mayor Guy Williams called it “a mandate from the people.” Retiring Mayor Kenneth Prestesater called it “a travesty.”

With Glenn supporting the policies of the current council, Bodley said he realizes that he cannot change the direction of the council with one vote. However, he hopes to make his presence felt in council debate.

“This will give me the opportunity to address those people on an equal basis and explain my ideas to them and hopefully win them over with reason,” he said.

Williams predicted that Bodley, once on the council, will moderate some of Glendora Pride’s more extreme slow-growth stands, such as a call for a moratorium on hillside development, but will also have an impact on his council colleagues.

‘Definite Influence’

“He will move toward the majority of the council once he is briefed on the legal aspects of some of these issues,” Williams said. “(But) he will have a definite influence, and this vote will definitely have an influence on the rest of the council. This is a mandate of the people.”

Bodley credited the surprising outcome to an informational campaign by Glendora Pride to alert an electorate that had traditionally been apathetic about city politics.

The group’s message was that the City Council was not adequately enforcing the city’s Rural Hillside Residential zoning ordinance, which was passed in 1973 to ensure orderly development of the foothills.

“From the people I spoke to, I had the feeling that the people . . . didn’t know what was happening in their own city,” Bodley said. “I think that as we talked to them and made them aware of what was going on in the city, they became concerned.”

Glenn Unaffected

But if such slow-growth sentiments are pervasive in Glendora, they did not seem to affect Glenn, who ran on a platform of support for the city’s development practices.

“I think the policies that we’ve set forth and have been following are good ones,” Glenn said, adding that he saw little need for a slow-growth movement in Glendora, where the population has increased about 2% each of the last two years. “I don’t see that we’ve been a rapidly growing city. We don’t have that much (land) left to develop.”

However, Williams, who had doubted Bodley’s ability to mount a successful council campaign, said Glendora Pride’s campaign had obviously touched a nerve in the electorate.

“I’ve never seen an election where a relative newcomer has polled so many votes,” Williams said. “It’s a strong, strong signal. . . . I think it very clearly demonstrates that a lot of people are not at all pleased with the council’s interpretation of the hillside development ordinance.”

Distortion Alleged

Prestesater, who chose not to run when his term expired this year, said the vote that drove Gordon from office was the result of a campaign of distortion waged by Glendora Pride.

“It’s an over-reaction by the people of Glendora based on misinformation,” Prestesater said.

Gordon, disconsolate after the final returns came in, declined to suggest a reason why voters had ousted him from the council seat he had held since 1976.

“My platform was running on the accomplishments the city has done in the last 10 years, and I stand by that,” Gordon said. “I think we’ve accomplished a lot.”

‘Right Direction’

Councilman Bob Kuhn dismissed the idea that the election represented a slow-growth mandate by Glendora voters.

“I think the city has been in the right direction for the past 20 years, and I don’t think that’s changed over the last two or three years,” Kuhn said. “I think the community has always been basically a conservative community, and I don’t think either of the two guys who were elected are going to change that.”

Glenn chalked up both his victory and Bodley’s to plain hard work.

“Anytime anyone puts forth that kind of effort, they’re going to win,” Glenn said.