Neighborhood Groups Deliver Political Punch in Long Beach

Stanley Green was perturbed that the city might one day take some of his Belmont Heights back yard to widen an alley. Karen Pilcher worried that her Rose Park neighbors would build rental units behind their bungalows.

Both Green and Pilcher decided to do something about their concerns. They each banded together with like-minded neighbors, mounting carefully planned lobbying campaigns to change city law.

And they both got their way. The City Council recently outlawed second units in Pilcher’s neighborhood and is exempting residential areas such as Green’s from alley-widening requirements.

Their stories are but two examples of the political influence of Long Beach’s many neighborhood groups. More numerous and effective than ever before, they are subtly shaping the council’s agenda and winning far more battles than they lose, according to city officials and community activists.

Slow-Growth Front

In the past two years, the presence of neighborhood organizations has been particularly felt on the slow-growth front, where they have persuaded the council to lower zoning densities in one part of the city after another.

In a community where council members are elected by district rather than citywide, the local groups represent what no politician can ignore with impunity: well-organized voters in his or her own back yard.

“If push comes to shove, I can do without money, but I can’t do without the homeowners,” said 9th District Councilman Warren Harwood, who meets monthly with leaders of the North Long Beach Neighborhood Assn. At election time, he noted, neighborhood groups “can make an almost overwhelming difference if they believe the neighborhood is threatened--and you’re the threat or the protection.”

Some even argue that such groups hold too great a sway over the council and the Planning Commission, turning policy setters into followers who cater to the demands of small bands of voters, oblivious to the city’s greater needs.

Referring to some public officials, former Planning Commissioner Richard Gaylord complained: “Whether or not they think it’s the right thing to do, they go along” with the groups’ demands.

Protect Status Quo

“It’s really the ward politics of the 1900s revisited,” one official asserted, saying the neighborhood campaigns are too often motivated by self-interest and a desire to protect the status quo. He and others repeatedly say the trend of lowering residential density limits will ultimately restrict the availability of housing and hurt future residents.

Such observations notwithstanding, the neighborhood groups are generally perceived as having a salutary effect. “I think they’re very good,” said 8th District Councilman Jeffrey A. Kellogg, who so laments the absence of active groups in his district that he is trying to start some.

“We work with (city officials). It’s a power base for them, too,” observed Dan Cangro, the workaholic leader of the Wrigley Assn., a high-energy group that has embraced a number of local causes and projects since it was revived in the Wrigley area in 1987.

Neighborhood groups are hardly new to Long Beach, a city of 55 neighborhoods distinct enough to merit names. The Naples Improvement Assn., for instance, has been around for 40 years. Because they invariably spring up in areas of single-family homes, the groups are typically made up of middle-class residents.

While some groups endure for decades, many others live and die with the issues that breed them. “Usually whatever they want is to protect what they’ve got,” said Paul Schmidt, a political science professor at Cal State Long Beach who teaches local government courses. If the threat disappears, he said, the group can, too.

The city’s size and character have helped make it a fertile ground for local groups. With a population of about 400,000, Long Beach is large enough to need them yet small enough to let them have a voice. Residential areas abut industrial areas, spawning the sort of land-use conflicts that spur community activists into action.

Long Beach’s switch to districtwide council elections in 1976 greatly enhanced the groups’ role, and the development pressures of recent years have galvanized neighborhoods whose spokesmen have become regular players at council meetings.

“The whole runaway building situation . . . that’s what got all the people up in arms,” said Sid Solomon of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved (LBACI), a 14-year-old, communitywide political group. “I’ve seen a lot of new neighborhood groups coming to the council.”

Mayor Ernie Kell, who spent more than a decade on the council, said the influence of local groups “has drastically increased. . . . They show up en masse and they’ve been very effective.”

25 Active Groups

Solomon estimates that there are about 25 active neighborhood organizations in the city. Bob Roxby, who is helping organize a citywide coalition of neighborhood associations, counts about 17 that have formal bylaws.

Long Beach’s neighborhood activists have considerable company in Southern California. Constant growth pressures, devotion to the suburban life style and a Proposition 13-induced decline in municipal services have combined to make the region one of the nation’s centers of the neighborhood movement.

Richard Peiser, a USC urban planning professor who advises the development industry on how to deal with neighborhood groups, says he tells developers that community activists “are a fact of life. Developers in the past could often circumvent them and go to City Hall and get through their projects. . . . That has become a thing of the past.”

There is no magic to the groups’ frequent successes. They are the product of hard work, enormous amounts of it. The groups shower city officials with letters, petitions and phone calls, often meticulously researching their topics.

“You think perhaps they’re naive and they don’t understand it all, but when it’s all over, you’re the one who’s (been) educated,” commented Councilman Wallace Edgerton of the shoreline 2nd District.

Zoning Change Sought

When Rose Park resident Pilcher, a film production manager, decided that the way to keep second units out of her neighborhood was to change the zoning in the area from two units per lot (R-2) to one unit (R-1), she joined forces with another woman, Kathryn Goria, and formed an organization, “Save Our Neighborhood,” which grew to about 20 members.

They approached their task with the single-mindedness of a general plotting a military invasion.

First, they circulated a petition in the area, requesting a moratorium on second units and asking for a study of the whole rezoning issue.

Then they took the petition to Edgerton, their councilman, met with members of the city Planning Department, distributed fliers, phoned their neighbors and conducted a door-to-door lobbying campaign. Pilcher and Goria even put together a block-by-block map of the neighborhood, using dots of different colors to indicate which households were in favor of the rezoning, which were opposed and which were undecided.

In the meantime, an opposition group of residents, eager to retain the right to build second units, formed to fight the rezoning. They called themselves Concerned Citizens for Sensible Land Use.

Nearly Even Split

The city sent out a questionnaire to area residents, polling them on the issue. The results revealed a nearly even split, with 51% of the households supporting the downzoning and 49% opposing it.

Members of Pilcher’s group then turned their attention to Planning Commission members. They phoned commissioners, invited them to tour the neighborhood and presented them with a carefully compiled booklet of petitions, letters, newspaper clippings, color snapshots of attractive bungalows and ugly second units, and even copies of the opposition’s flyers.

The commissioners approved the rezoning of a 6-square-block area by a 4-2 vote. In November, about six months after Pilcher and Goria took up their cause, the council outlawed second units in their neighborhood. Pilcher, having spent an average of 25 hours a week on her crusade, says she’s still recovering. “We were both almost having nervous breakdowns,” she said, only half joking.

Green, a transportation planner who takes care of his two small children full time, has labored more than 150 hours to reform the city’s alley-widening regulations. He started by passing out letters to his neighbors with the assistance of his 3-year-old son, became convinced that he needed the clout of an organization, and formed the Belmont Heights Community Assn. It now has about 60 members and has become involved in other issues, such as the fight to stop the local school district from razing several blocks of homes to expand Wilson High School on the East Side.

Neighborhood Victories

A glance at City Council agendas of the past few years provides ample evidence of neighborhood victories, some of which pitted neighbor against neighbor. An acrimonious zoning dispute was waged in California Heights this year over the same second-unit issue that split Pilcher’s Rose Park neighborhood. The single-unit proponents won, and the council changed the zoning in the area to prevent the construction of rental units.

A few years ago, neighbors in the Belmont Shore and Naples districts argued over whether residents should be allowed to add third stories to their houses. The 2-story side prevailed.

A much more unified front was presented this fall when Roxby and others got together the Coalition of Neighborhood Organizations to promote a proposal modifying the city’s so-called grandfather provisions. The proposal, which makes it more difficult for a development project to remain immune from changes in zoning law, was recently passed.

The coalition has hopes of becoming a permanent force, presenting a single voice on issues and endorsing political candidates, Roxby said.

Some local groups, such as the Wrigley Assn., make a point of not endorsing candidates, while others have been instrumental in getting candidates elected to the council.

“I couldn’t have won without those folks,” 7th District Councilman Ray Grabinski said of the California Heights Action Group (CHAG), formed in 1980 to block a refinery planned for the area. Grabinski was one of CHAG’s leaders, often appearing before the council on the organization’s behalf. When he ran for the council in 1986, dozens of CHAG members helped his campaign.

Political Springboards

Community groups are logical springboards for the politically motivated. Their first taste of the action only whets their appetites. Councilwoman Jan Hall got her start in the 1960s when, as the head of a homeowners association, she helped block construction of a freeway in her neighborhood. Luanne Pryor, president of Beach Area Concerned Citizens, garnered 12,000 votes in her run for the mayor’s post earlier this year. Bud Huber, president of one of the city’s better-known neighborhood groups, the Belmont Shore Improvement Assn., also ran for mayor, as well as for a council seat two years ago.

Whether they are viewed as shortsighted protectors of their own turf or hard-working guardians of Long Beach’s way of life, neighborhood groups are expected to remain a force at City Hall. “I think it’s a phenomenon that’s here to stay,” City Manager James Hankla said.