Torrance Council Politics Polite--and Private

“I want to make it as dull as Torrance,” Carson City Councilman Michael Mitoma said on election night last April, referring to Carson’s fractious politics. “We are not going to be in the newspapers . . . . It is going to be dull, dull, dull.”

Indeed, Torrance politics are genteel.

An aura of civic civility envelops City Hall like a blanket. Absent are the heated debates and name-calling that enliven council deliberations in other cities. The weekly council sessions are marked more by quiet deliberations than by tension or drama.

Disputes do arise in Torrance, of course, particularly over land use. Development pressure in Los Angeles County’s fourth-largest city is intense.

Located in a job-rich corridor between Los Angeles International Airport and the largest port complex on the West Coast, Torrance has been a magnet for home buyers, retail outlets, Japanese businesses and Pacific Rim traders. A shortage of open land has driven prices for buildable space to nearly $1 million an acre.

Whenever developers set their sights on a piece of ground, they are likely to run into opposition from some of the two dozen homeowner groups in the city that are determined to protect their quality of life. Inevitably, the City Council is called upon to settle such disputes.

But rather than hash them out publicly, council members say they anticipate homeowner objections and then meet privately with developers--individually or in small groups--to smooth out problems.

While elected officials in other South Bay cities say they also meet with developers to resolve problems quietly, the Torrance City Council has refined the process to an art form.

Developers are encouraged to bring their plans to council members. “Anyone who is smart does that,” said Councilman Bill Applegate.

Often, the private discussions begin before a project is formally proposed.

“We’ve encouraged the developers to come to us,” said Councilman Tim Mock. “I would say it’s much more frequent in recent years.”

Seeking Compromise

In those private meetings--usually in the council members’ offices on the third floor of City Hall--council members review plans and often suggest changes, they said.

When the roll is called on major planning decisions, the verdict often is unanimous.

“You try to find compromise,” Mock said. “That’s the art of politics.”

But by seeking consensus outside the public eye, City Atty. Stanley E. Remelmeyer acknowledged, council members are “on somewhat thin ice” legally. “You have to be careful,” he said.

Remelmeyer said he has told council members that under state law, a majority of the seven council members may not gather to discuss public business except at public meetings.

Council members say they take pains to avoid violating the law--known as the Brown Act--by having one, two or three council members meet with a developer on a project--but never four, which would constitute a majority.

“We are trying to work out problems before it comes to the public,” Mock said. “It makes the system run smoother. It solves a lot of problems up front.”

Mock said this process does not violate the spirit of the open-meeting law because the final decision always is made in public.

Councilman Mark Wirth said his colleagues are “very careful” not to violate the open-meeting law. “If we’re talking, it’s not more than three of us.”

But homeowner representatives say this approach puts them at a disadvantage because they don’t know what happens in private and they don’t have the same ability to meet with council members during the afternoon when most hold office hours.

“A lot of what happens goes on behind the scenes,” said Sue Herbers, president of the Southeast Torrance Homeowners Assn. “The citizens of Torrance have very little opportunity to hear about something before it happens. They are not kept abreast of events that are transpiring.”

Herbers said council members prefer not to have conflicts aired in public.

“They don’t like waves,” she said. “They don’t want waves.”

John Eubanks, president of the Southwood Homeowners Assn., which represents 2,200 homeowners in the western part of the city, said compromise “tends to become a way of doing business.”

Medical Complex

Eubanks is critical of the process that led to the council’s approval last month of a $9.3-million medical office building project sought by Little Company of Mary Hospital.

“To be quite frank, I think the decisions were made before the public hearing,” Eubanks said. “Their minds were pretty much made up.”

Another neighborhood activist, Fran Quinlan, said she appreciates the opportunity to speak at public hearings. “This is very nice,” she said, “but what you say makes no difference.”

The hospital project provides a case study of how the Torrance City Council does business.

For more than a year, Little Company tried to win approval to construct a medical office building on a 4.3-acre site across from the hospital on Earl Street. Hospital representatives argued that providing office space for 55 physicians was essential if Little Company was to remain competitive with other South Bay hospitals.

Neighborhood Opposition

But the project was stalled by strong protests from homeowners in the solidly middle-class neighborhoods that surround the hospital. They feared that the project, along with a new office building at the congested intersection of Torrance and Hawthorne boulevards and other development in the area, will drown their neighborhood in traffic.

Having to choose between a hospital that council members consider one of the city’s major assets and the interests of a neighborhood with a powerful homeowners association posed a no-win situation.

When the final 7-to-0 decision was made Aug. 30 to approve a scaled-down 4-story building and adjoining parking lot, the homeowners went away unhappy.

For months, homeowner Quinlan wrote letters, organized neighbors and testified at public hearings against the project. She told all who would listen that the 3,200 vehicle trips per day that the medical building is expected to generate would compound traffic problems in surrounding residential areas.

She said it is “mightily discouraging to me” that the council approved the project.

But council members take credit for persuading the hospital to scale down the project, and say much of the persuasion occurred during behind-the-scenes talks.

Changes Discussed

Council members said they discussed the project privately with hospital representatives four or five times during the past year. In those meetings, council members told hospital officials what changes were necessary to make the project acceptable.

At first, the hospital didn’t pay attention.

During a three-hour public hearing on Aug. 2, council members acknowledged the private meetings and lectured hospital officials for not heeding what was said during the sessions.

“We’ve had meeting after meeting,” Councilman Bill Applegate told hospital President Jim Lester. “I know for a fact that there is a message that I have conveyed.”

Applegate said he told the hospital that the medical building had to be moved to the center of the property. Doing so was seen as a way to placate neighbors because it would, in effect, limit further expansion of the hospital.

But the hospital ignored the message, Applegate said. “This is the darndest thing I’ve ever run up against,” he said.

Playing ‘Hardball’

The veteran councilman told hospital officials at the public hearing that they were playing “hardball” with the council. “It’s not something you do,” he sniffed.

Mayor Katy Geissert and every other council member said, at the hearing or in interviews, that they, too, had told hospital officials in private that changes were necessary.

“I met with them I don’t know how many times,” Geissert said. “The message was out there.”

In an interview, Councilman Dan Walker said he tried before the Aug. 2 hearing to give the hospital “a very, very clear message . . they couldn’t just go and put anything anywhere they wanted and have us buy it.”

He chided hospital officials publicly for being unwilling to compromise privately. “You are making a very, very big mistake,” he said.

The hospital got the message.

Four weeks and $200,000 in new plans later, the project was approved after the medical building was moved to the center of the property and the parking lot was redesigned.

James Ruetz, vice president of Little Company of Mary, said he met with council members individually or in groups of two or three at least three or four times.

Ruetz said he has learned that in dealing with the Torrance City Council “it helps to kind of feel them out in advance.” He said the private discussions help a developer to “know what issues you’re going to face.”

Ruetz said the hospital underestimated the need for compromise in order to win approval.

“I think there is an art to reading these people,” Ruetz said. “You tend to doubt how strong their signals are.”

The original plans called for two buildings with 50% more floor space and a 2-story parking garage. The final package includes one building and a surface parking lot with 135 fewer spaces.

With homeowner protests against large-scale developments in Torrance becoming more frequent, Ruetz predicted that “every project from here on out is going to be tough.”

Whenever a large project is proposed, Torrance Planning Director David Ferren said, he urges the developer to contact the council members privately. “It behooves you to try to meet with council members to show them the concept,” he said.

Councilman Walker agreed. “We like to have applicants work out their problems before it gets into the planning process,” he said. That process begins when a developer seeks building permits, zoning changes, conditional-use permits or other city approvals. The hospital needed a conditional-use permit and building permits.

“We simply are open with people about what our thoughts and feelings are. If it’s too big, I’ll tell them. If I don’t like the design, I’ll tell them and my colleagues do the same,” Walker said. “The successful developers are the ones who take that information and go back and redesign.”

Some neighborhood leaders fear the process leaves them out of the planning process.

“We have a very paternalistic city government,” said Herbers of the Southeast Torrance Homeowners Assn. “They think they know what is best for us.”

Eubanks of the Southwood Homeowners Assn. said: “Developers seem to be better financed than the citizens” and are better able to lobby the council members. “I’m really not pleased with that method of doing business. On the other hand,” he said, “it’s nothing new in American politics.”

Campaign Contributions

Eubanks expressed concern that council members rely on developers for a large share of money needed to finance their election campaigns.

“A developer does not give out of the kindness of their heart or a sense of civic duty,” he said. “A developer gives money out of the hope that it greases the wheels.”

Walker and his colleagues defend the process of meeting individually or in small groups with developers, and say they are just as accessible to homeowner groups.

The most successful fund-raiser on the council, Walker denies any connection between developer contributions and council decisions. “I think we vote our consciences on issues,” he said.

Only one council member, Dee Hardison, refuses to accept campaign donations from developers with business before the city. Her campaign fund is running a deficit. “To me it would have to make a difference if . . . I took their money,” Hardison said. “And I don’t want that problem.”

Council members say the $65-million green-and-black marble Oxford Properties building at Torrance and Hawthorne boulevards exemplifies the benefits of quietly resolving problems with a developer. Originally, the project entailed a Century City-style hotel-convention center with a 20-story office tower.

Tactical Error

Planning Director Ferren said Oxford made a major mistake at the outset by announcing the project in the newspaper before telling council members.

In Torrance, Ferren said, “you don’t put up a ‘coming soon’ sign. You don’t advertise for retail space, even if (city approval) appears to be a slam dunk.”

Ferren said Torrance is in such demand as a residential and business location that “the city does not have to accept every developer who comes into town and says they’re doing you a favor by bringing development to the city.”

Instead, the city can say to developers: “If you want to be here, these are the rules.”

According to Walker, council members told Oxford the original high-rise plan was “ridiculous” and they would have to “come back with a bunch of smaller buildings.”

It took numerous private meetings and a series of redesigns over a period of years before “anyone thought they had an acceptable idea,” Walker said.

Project Near Completion

The 8-story building and adjoining 4-story parking structure for more than 1,015 cars finally won approval and is nearing completion.

Proud of the project that emerged from the negotiating process, all seven council members were on hand for the ground breaking.

The behind-the-scenes discussions start early, sometimes before developers even acquire a property. Council members said they already have been approached with inquiries about what type of development they would favor for the 32 acres that Unocal is selling at the southwest corner of Crenshaw and Lomita boulevards.

The next battle over a large-scale development project, however, is likely to involve the former Meadow Park school site west of Hawthorne Boulevard between Lomita Boulevard and 230th Street.

For months, developer Arthur Valdez has been talking privately with council members about building on the land, which stretches from the commercial strip near the city’s busiest street to a single-family neighborhood on the west and south.

Valdez paid $8.4 million for the 9-acre school site and wants to develop the land as townhouse condominiums and patio homes. He recently bulldozed the school buildings to make way for the project.

Change in Plans

His first plan--to build 174 units in 3-story condo buildings, 2-story townhouses and single-family homes--was abandoned after drawing unfavorable reviews from council members and city planners. No public notice of the council discussions was issued and the project still has not gone before the city’s Planning Commission.

The latest concept involves 54 2-story townhouse units and 36 detached patio homes, plus a small office building on part of Republic Bank’s parking lot facing Hawthorne Boulevard.

Valdez said he is trying to design a project that “reasonably satisfies everybody” including nearby homeowners. “It’s not an easy process.”

He said Torrance council members are “very open, very approachable people. They are nice to work with because you can get input. They are very receptive to sitting down and talking to you.”