Mills’ Widow Upset With Carson’s Reaction to Death

Carson Councilman Tom Mills’ lengthy illness caused acrimony on the council while he was alive. Last week, his death prompted bitter feelings by his widow toward the city.

“My husband gave eight years of his life to the city and the city has totally rejected him in his death,” his widow, Barbara Mills, said Friday. Mills died Tuesday at age 54.

In a tearful telephone interview, Mills said she was angry about the speedy packing of her husband’s personal effects in his council office, and about rumors circulating in City Hall that he had died of AIDS.

Earlier, at a press conference in her home Thursday, she said she was upset because she was not allowed to use his council office to meet reporters.

“Tom had no AIDS,” she said Friday, adding that the rumors to that effect “must be coming from his enemies on the council.” Told that the rumors were being circulated by city staff, not council members, she added: “They must be enemies, too.”

To counter the AIDS rumors, she said, she was disclosing the exact cause of his death, which she had earlier declined to disclose. She said Mills’ doctor told her that the councilman’s death was caused by three factors: complications from gall bladder surgery last June, his long-term diabetes and a recurrent cancer that was discovered again on April 23.

In an interview in February, Mills denied he had cancer. The denial came after Mills’ absences from council meetings provoked heated exchanges between Councilman Michael Mitoma--an opponent of Mills--and Councilwoman Sylvia Muise, Mills’ only ally on the council. Mitoma said the public had a right to know the nature of Mills’ illness and whether he would return. Muise protested that his medical condition was a private matter.

In explaining her husband’s denial, Mills said Friday that doctors first discovered a cancer in August when they attempted to reconstruct the councilman’s bile duct, and they believed that they had removed all of it. CAT scans in January and February showed no sign of any tumor, she said.

“Tom did not disclose all of that because Tom was told by doctors that he was clear,” Mills said. “Sometimes, when you say ‘cancer,’ people are just waiting for you to die.”

Recently, however, “because he was getting so weak,” she asked for another CAT scan. On April 23--three days before Mills’ death, his doctor told her it showed that the councilman had cancer, she said.

“Up until Saturday, we all had great hopes Tom was going to do better,” she said.

Mills said she did not question the doctor about the location of the cancer, but denied it was intestinal cancer as one report said. “When the doctor told me (April 23) Tom wasn’t going to make it, I didn’t care what he was dying of,” she said.

Mills said her husband died surrounded by friends and family.

“He was aware to the end,” she said. “He would blink his eyes, squeeze your hand. Sometimes, he would talk even though it hurt to talk.”

After her husband died, Mills wanted to use her husband’s council office to hold her press conference, but officials rebuffed her request, she said.

“We were informed that we could not be accommodated because we were not elected officials,” she said.

Deputy City Administrator Bill McKown said city officials rejected the request because they were not told what Mills intended to say and they feared it might become a forum to advocate a candidate for the council vacancy.

Their suspicions were aroused by the dramatic way in which Mills’ death was announced, he said. Aaron Carter, a political protege of Mills and Muise, interrupted council proceedings Tuesday to inform the members that Mills had died several hours earlier.

The press conference “could have been a campaign speech,” McKown said. “It is a touchy situation. She (Barbara Mills) is not an elected official and she is not entitled to use the office. . . . It isn’t vindictive for Dr. Mills. I have total respect for the man.”

At the press conference, Mills declined to comment about picking her husband’s successor. Carter was not present. She used the press conference to eulogize her husband and to announce details of his funeral. It will be at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Calvary Chapel of South Bay in Carson. The House of Winston Mortuary, 9501 S. Vermont Ave., is handling arrangements.

The family--Mills had five children and four grandchildren--had sought to use the city’s Community Center for Mills’ funeral, according to McKown. “That was totally inappropriate,” he said. “It would set a bad precedent.”

Two other sore points between the city and the Mills family involve the way in which Mills’ council office has been treated and the disposition of his official portrait.

“Two days after my husband died, to have his office stripped down, it is almost a desecration,” his widow said vehemently.

Delivered to Home

McKown said that, as a “courtesy thing,” city employees packed up the councilman’s personal effects in boxes and delivered them to his residence. “The whole thing is really kind of messy. You are a bad guy if you do and a bad guy if you don’t,” he said.

He said the council would consider a request from Mills for the portrait of the councilman that normally hangs near the entrance of City Hall. (Mills’ portrait and those of the other elected officials are being stored during painting.)

“Until the council meets, no one has the authority to say she can have the picture,” McKown said. It was paid for with public funds.”