Pomona Tired of High Marks for Low Appeal

Pomona is having a hard time in its quest for a reputation as a community on the move, the perfect place to raise a family or locate a business. Sure, it is among 30 municipalities in contention to be named an All-American city by the National Civic League. But there’s the problem of those lists.

First there was that Zero Population Growth group, which each year ranks Pomona near the top of its list of the nation’s most stressful cities.

Then this week, another survey suggested that Pomona is an ideal spot to torch a building. The trouble began Sunday when the San Gabriel Valley city was singled out as the nation’s No. 1 hot spot for arsonists by a Detroit newspaper, which drew up a list based on FBI statistics.

Newspaper’s Statistics

The Detroit Free Press--in a report that received wide circulation--noted that arsonists set 757 fires last year in Pomona, a 125% increase from 1987 for the city of 120,620.

That works out to 627.6 arson fires for every 100,000 residents, a rate that put Pomona well in front of second-place Gary, Ind., which had 432 arson incidents per 100,000 inhabitants.

There was one problem, however, with Pomona’s blazing ranking--it was all a big mistake.

Eager to contain damage to the city’s reputation, Pomona Fire Department officials did some furious number-crunching and found an explanation that enabled local officials to sigh with relief. A Fire Department employee newly assigned to the job had sent the FBI the number for all the fires in the city, not just those caused by arson.

‘It’s Very Frustrating’

“It’s very frustrating when one is trying to build a positive view of the city,” City Administrator A. J. Wilson said.

Explained Fire Chief Tom Fee: “We had a switch in personnel that caused us to gather some (erroneous) figures and report fires as arsons that weren’t arsons.”

The mistake covered statistics for three months in 1988, he said.

Pomona actually had 460 fires of suspicious origin last year, of which only 174 were determined to be arson. The revised figures, which Fee said would be sent to the FBI as soon as possible, give the city a rate of 144.3 fires per 100,000 residents, which would place it 18th on the list of 191 U.S. cities, just ahead of Rochester, N.Y.

And of the confirmed arsons, only 62 involved buildings, Fee said, with the remainder consuming vehicles, open fields or even just piles of trash--fires that many departments would never record as arson.

“Pomona certainly doesn’t rank No. 1, nor is it any different than any of the other communities around here,” Fee said. “We don’t want that perception to get out.”

Pomona officials do not relish such notoriety for a city that many acknowledge has an image problem. People in neighboring affluent bedroom communities disparage Pomona as a graffiti-covered mecca for gangs and drug dealers. Many homeowners in Phillips Ranch, an upscale housing development in the southwest corner of the city, claim Phillips Ranch, not Pomona, as their home address.

Another blow to civic pride occurs each year when Zero Population Growth issues its urban stress survey. For the last five years, the Washington-based group has ranked Pomona as high as second--behind Miami--among the nation’s most stressful cities in a much-publicized survey based on statistics for crime, pollution, overcrowding, changes in population and teen-age pregnancy.

Although he called the latest report on Pomona’s alleged arson problem “unfortunate,” City Administrator Wilson was confident that no serious harm would be done to the community.

Not a ‘Mortal Blow’

“Being able to convince the investor public that we can protect their investment from fire is important . . . (but) I don’t really think it’s going to come as any mortal blow,” he said.

Community leaders are hoping that the negative publicity will be forgotten if Pomona is honored as one of 10 All-American cities. The 30 finalists will send delegations to Chicago on May 11. Wilson said his optimism about the city’s prospects enables him to be sanguine about the arson report.

“If I felt that it was going to be the only story we were going to have published about Pomona for the next few years, I would be concerned,” he said. “I’m not quite so sure that it was believable in the first place. . . . The number of arsons that occurred in Miami during Super Bowl week alone would wipe out the arsons we’ve had in the last five years.”