Lawndale Planning Department Still Has Problems

The Lawndale City Council hoped that hiring a new planning director and city manager would resolve the serious problems that have plagued the Planning Department in the last year.

Because of Planning Department errors, a number of building projects have received city approval even though they do not provide sufficient parking and setbacks to comply with city codes. The council approved an amnesty plan last month that allows developers to get final approvals for projects even if the permits were issued in error.

But the amnesty and the new administrators have not ended the Planning Department’s troubles.

In developments last week:

The new city manager, Daniel P. Joseph, wrote a confidential memo to the new planning director, James Arnold, demanding his resignation. In the memo, Joseph described Arnold’s work as unsatisfactory and said he has been paying more attention to city politics than to his own job.

The City Council met in closed session Thursday night to discuss Arnold’s job performance. In an interview Friday, Arnold dismissed the city manager’s evaluation as “a complete and utter fabrication” and said, “I am not resigning.”

The city’s previous planning director, Nancy L. Owens, claimed in an interview that she was the victim of a City Council “witch hunt” that forced her resignation last fall. She has accused the council of discriminating against her because she is a woman and said she was wrongly blamed for policies that were established before she came to work in Lawndale in 1985.

Lawndale officials, in turn, said Owens knowingly overrode building and zoning laws, and bullied employees into approving projects that did not meet city standards. The accusations came in the city’s response to a sex discrimination complaint Owens filed a few months ago.

Councilman Larry Rudolph has asked the district attorney’s office to investigate whether any laws were violated during Owens’ tenure.

Although neither Joseph nor Arnold would make public the confidential memo, a copy was obtained by The Times. “If you choose not to resign,” Joseph said in the 2-page memo, “I will take the necessary steps to involuntarily terminate you.”

“Your primary shortcoming is that I don’t consider you a ‘team’ player,” wrote Joseph, who came to the city in June after City Manager Paul Philips was forced out in part because of Planning Department problems. “Since my arrival, you have spent the majority of your time with me pointing out the ‘problems’ your predecessor left you and pointing the finger at other members of the management staff. . . .

“I have had difficulty evaluating your work product because there appears to be so little of it,” Joseph said, adding that planning staff members have had to take up the slack to cover Arnold’s duties. Joseph said Arnold has been preoccupied with city politics and “expressing opinions based on how you feel the political winds are blowing.”

Joseph noted that Arnold has taken 9 1/2 days off since he started work in February. Joseph said this amount of absence is “totally unacceptable.”

In an interview Friday, Arnold disagreed with Joseph’s evaluation. Of his time off, Arnold said: “He has criticized me for going to my son’s graduation in Portland while he spent two weeks (vacationing) in Hawaii himself. I was here six months and he for two months. I’ll leave the judgment on this to the public.

“I am not resigning,” he said. “I am not going to be chased out of employment at the expense of my children and family by a young man on an ego trip.” Arnold is 58, Joseph 38.

Arnold has worked as a planning consultant and has held top planning posts in California and the Midwest. He was a Ford Foundation planning consultant in India, and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in municipal management and city planning from USC.

Joseph has worked as an assistant city manager in Seal Beach, Pico Rivera and Alhambra. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Cal State Fullerton and a master’s degree in public administration from Cal State Long Beach.

Asked to comment Friday, Joseph responded: “I have no desire or intent of discussing personnel matters in a public forum.”

This is not the first time that the departure of top Lawndale officials has leaked to newspapers before being resolved by the City Council. In an interview this week--her first public account of her departure from the city last fall--Owens said reporters were told that she had resigned before she had agreed to do so. She said this was done in an effort to put pressure on her publicly.

Owens cited the leak as an example of City Council harassment that marred her two years as Lawndale planning director. She was hired in October, 1985, to replace Mark Winogrond, who was popular with the council during his five years as Lawndale’s planning chief. He became planning director of the newly formed city of West Hollywood.

Erroneous Materials

Owens said some of the planning policies for which she was criticized and ultimately forced to resign were instituted before she joined the city. For example, erroneous handout materials and the guidelines used to determine parking requirements for new projects date back to Winogrond’s era, she said. “If these policies were not an issue during the previous administration, I question why they are an issue now,” Owens said.

Winogrond said when city laws are specific, the Planning Department follows them exactly. But in many cases, he said, laws are vague and planning departments have “a tremendous amount of latitude” in interpreting them. He said he could not comment on the specific policies Owens referred to without seeing the pertinent documents.

Owens said the City Council and the city attorney conspired to force her resignation because she is a woman. “The decision of the City Council to force my resignation was the result of a conspiracy and manipulation of facts, circumstances and people by several members of the council, one member of the Planning Commission and the city attorney. . . ,” she said. Their actions “were designed to discredit me and my work because I am a woman.”

Although she refused to name individuals, Owens apparently was referring to Councilmen Harold E. Hofmann and Dan McKenzie and Planning Commissioner Gary McDonald, all of whom have publicly criticized her administration, and City Atty. David J. Aleshire, who was extremely critical of the Planning Department in a 45-report delivered to the City Council on Oct. 1. Owens resigned a few weeks later.

Owens claimed that the council coerced Aleshire into writing a scathing report that could be used to force her out.

No Errors Found

Aleshire denied that the report was slanted or that the council attempted to influence the report. He said Owens was given an opportunity to correct any errors in the report before it was made public. Aleshire said Owens found no errors, although she did disagree with his interpretation of city codes on parking.

The city’s 8-page, single-space response July 27 to Owens’ sex discrimination claim, which was filed a few months ago with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, denies that the city has practiced discrimination.

“Ms. Owens’ claim of sex discrimination is surprising in light of the city’s excellent history of employing women in management and mid-management positions,” said Jeffrey Wertheimer, who, along with Aleshire, is a member of the Costa Mesa law firm that represents the city.

Three of Lawndale’s five top management positions have been filled by women in the last three years, and 40% of 30 mid-management positions were filled by women, Wertheimer reported. Half of the 18 management and mid-management openings since 1985 have been filled by women, he said, adding that two of the five City Council members are women.

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Owens responded. Lawndale has a substantial percentage of women and minorities because women are more willing to work for Lawndale salaries, which are lower than those offered in other cities, she said. As an example, she said, she is being paid more as an assistant planner in another city than she received as the $49,000-a-year planning director in Lawndale. She declined to say where she is working.

‘Not Doing the Job’

Members of the City Council said problems with Owens had nothing to do with her sex, adding that they do not view themselves as sexist.

“She was not dismissed because she was a woman but because she was not doing the job she was hired to do,” said McKenzie, whom Owens criticized because he called an assistant city manager a “little girl.”

McKenzie acknowledged that sometimes out of habit, he calls women “girls” but said “a 25-year-old woman is still a girl to me. When you’re 73 years old, everybody looks young.”