2 La Canada Council Members Seek Reelection

La Canada Flintridge’s eldest statesman, Mayor Edmund Krause, was one of two incumbents who announced they will seek reelection to the five-member City Council last week.

Krause, 88, is the oldest mayor in California, according to the League of California Cities.

The other incumbent to announce her candidacy was Councilwoman Joan Feehan.

The third council member whose term expires in April, O. Warren Hillgren, said he has not yet decided whether he will run for reelection April 10. The terms of Mayor Pro Tem Chris Valente and Councilman Ed Phelps, both elected to the council in 1988, will be not be up until 1992.

Krause said he decided to run for reelection because “there are still so many issues that have to be resolved and I want to help out and be involved where I can.”

The proposed Sport Chalet shopping complex, the Lanterman House renovation project and municipal sanitation top the list of subjects Krause said he wants to tackle as a City Council member.

Krause has served on the La Canada Flintridge City Council since the city’s incorporation in 1976. He was mayor from April, 1982, to April, 1983. His second one-year term as mayor began last April.

Valente said he was surprised by Krause’s decision to seek reelection. He described Krause as “a cute old man who knows his way around with a lot of politicians. He knows how to talk to the federal people, the state people and the county people.”

Krause’s political roots reach back to the early 1800s, when his great-grandfather and grandfather served as mayors in an area of Prussia that is now Poland.

His first experience in politics was as a volunteer for the election and reelection campaigns of the late Frank Lanterman, who served in the California Assembly from 1951 to 1978.

Fellow Councilman Ed Phelps said he wished Krause well but described him as “difficult to work with.”

Council members Feehan and Hillgren declined to comment on Krause.

Feehan was elected to the City Council in 1986 and served as mayor from April, 1988, to April, 1989. She said she wants to focus her political efforts on the city’s development issues.

“Our city is basically built out and our community is going through a drastic recycling,” Feehan said. “In the next four years, the City Council is going to have to make decisions that will affect all the residents. We’ll have to take a hard look at population density, lot coverage, and neighborhood compatibility.”

La Canada Flintridge issued about 600 building and remodeling permits in 1989.

“Our biggest industry is real estate,” Feehan continued. “That’s why I support the hillside moratorium. The hillsides are all that we have left.”

To qualify as a candidate for the April 10 election ballot, residents must obtain 20 signed endorsements from registered voters in the city by Feb. 1.