2 Election Victors Take Their Seats on La Canada Flintridge City Council

Two new members of the La Canada Flintridge City Council were sworn into office Tuesday and a new mayor was selected.

Council members named Joan Feehan, who is in the second year of her first term, as mayor and Councilman Edmund Krause as mayor pro tem. Krause and Councilman O. Warren Hillgren both have served on the five-member council for 12 years.

The two victors in the April 12 election--Chris Valente, 45, and Ed Phelps, 38--were sworn in to four-year terms before an audience of their supporters and families.

The vigorous campaigns of Phelps, an attorney, and Valente, executive director of the La Canada Youth House, turned the contest into one of the most bitter in the small city’s history.

Defeated council members Jack Hastings, 59, and J. Bixby Smith, 62, both admonished potential candidates in the audience to avoid similar campaigns in the future. During the last few weeks of the contest, anonymous flyers were distributed to residents that accused the City Council of illegal use of funds, favoritism and mismanagement.

In his speech, outgoing Mayor Pro Tem Jack Hastings, a builder and contractor, said he was upset at the vindictive tone the campaign had taken and criticized the local press for emphasizing “only the negative” events of the campaign.

Outgoing Mayor J. Bixby Smith, a retired Lockheed executive, said he disapproved of the nature of the campaign and said that the “allegations about government, staff and candidates” had left the local government tarnished.