New Development in Pasadena Politics : Government: A new organization called Pasadena Advocates might become an important pro-growth voice in city decisions.

A fledgling community group headed by the developer of the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel and drawing its board members from pro-business and minority communities could become a potent political challenger to the city’s slow-growth movement, some officials and activists say.

The group, Pasadena Advocates, plans to hold educational forums on city issues, publish research papers, and develop a roster of candidates to sit on more than 60 city commissions, committees and task forces. It has established a headquarters office run by a management company, Association Management Services at 201 S. Lake Ave. Run by Pamela Hemann, the management company also lists as a client the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, Los Angeles County East chapter.

Pasadena Advocates has no general members yet, but it will kick off its membership drive at its first meeting, March 1, at the Lake Avenue Congregational Church. Many of the people already associated with the group and listed on the 26-member board of directors are culled from the city’s business and development establishment.

With low, $25 annual-member fees, it has adopted the mass-membership organizing pattern established by Pasadena Heritage, the preservation group; Pasadena ACT, a powerful 18-year-old liberal organization, and Pasadena Residents in Defense of Our Environment (PRIDE), the group that sponsored the city’s Growth Management Initiative last year.

Already, some are calling Pasadena Advocates a “conservative ACT.”

“I think they’re really trying to turn Pasadena away from preservation, away from anti-growth to a more pro-growth stance,” said Jeanne Holt, past chairwoman of both Pasadena ACT and the Pasadena chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

“I think it’s a significant development,” added City Director Rick Cole, who actively campaigned for the PRIDE-sponsored growth management initiative.

Pasadena Advocates has drawn some of its board members from Pasadena Now, a pro-business group that claimed a membership roster of nearly 1,000 and wielded clout in the 1960s and 1970s before changing times relegated the organization to its present-day, discussion club status of about 75 members. Pasadena Advocates has also taken a new approach by reaching out to black allies in the NAACP and the Urban League, both represented on the board.

“It’s obviously a group that’s going to have some influence and develop a position,” said Pasadena Advocates board member Ibrahim Naeem, director of the Pasadena-Foothill branch of the Los Angeles Urban League. “I think the minority viewpoint ought to be represented. That’s my reason for being in that group.”

“They’re not the first to do it,” Cole said of Pasadena Advocates’ mass membership approach, “but the enormous advantage they will have is Larry Mielke’s money.”

Formation of the group could also aid Mielke, developer of the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, in his present dispute with the city over $420,000 in hotel development fees, Cole said. “When you come before the city board and there’s a $400,000 disagreement between the board and you, it sure doesn’t hurt to be head of a large, influential group of citizen activists,” Cole said.

Mielke, however, scoffed at the suggestion that his position as head of Pasadena Advocates would lend him any clout in his hotel dispute. He characterized the dispute as a legal difference over the interpretation of city rules that will be solved by logic--not a political dispute subject to persuasion by influence.

He also dismissed the notion that Pasadena Advocates will be pro-growth. Instead, he called it a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to voter education.

The group originated during discussions last summer among a handful of Pasadena activists who wanted to create an organization dedicated to airing all points of view in the city, Mielke said.

“My feeling is that there are a lot of different groups (in Pasadena), a lot of people with a lot of different agendas, and I don’t know if the public is getting served,” he said. “What we want to try to do is bring a balanced agenda.”

The group’s planned forums and research papers were sorely needed last March, Mielke said, when the city’s Growth Management Initiative passed with 7,138 votes, little more than half of the 20.3% total voter turnout.

“In my view, 11% of the voters doesn’t represent the whole city,” he said. The candidates the group advances for city commissions, committees and task forces will be open-minded, not pro- nor anti-development, Mielke said.

But some skeptics believe the group’s board already is full of people with pro-development points of view. “The players are known for their past roles,” Holt said.

Cole noted the participation of longtime conservative activist Besse Licher, with whom he said he had crossed political swords on some issues and had been allied on others.

“I prefer to be on the same side with Besse,” Cole said. “Her name alone will usually give a candidate credibility.”

“It’s a very eclectic list,” said Judy Boggs, executive director of ACT, “but given that there are so many Pasadena Now members and Larry Mielke, I would assume they’re more pro-growth, the antithesis of PRIDE (the group that sponsored the city’s growth management initiative).”

At least seven board members also belong to Pasadena Now, the group that some latter-day activists accuse of running Pasadena like an exclusive male club for nearly two decades before minorities, women, preservationists and community groups developed clout.

But Tige Payne, a Pasadena Now founder, said the group was formed to pull Pasadena out of an economic quagmire. In the mid-1960s, vacant buildings and vagrants characterized Colorado Avenue, Payne said. The lack of a robust city economy caused businesses and residents to flee.

“It was going to be another Compton,” he said of the city. Pasadena Now members raised $185,000, an amount matched by the city, for a consultant to create a redevelopment plan, he said.

The mainly white, middle-aged, Republican and male group worked closely with City Hall and met in the assistant city manager’s office, Payne said, disseminating a pro-business, pro-development, pro-growth line.

Pasadena Now held sway for nearly 20 years. Under its dominion arose Plaza Pasadena, the Pasadena Hilton Hotel, the Parsons Corp. headquarters and Plaza Las Fuentes, as well as the Civic Center Master Plan and the renewal of Old Pasadena, Payne said.

But times changed. After major economic developments altered the city and grass-roots organizers, neighborhood groups and preservationists gained force, Pasadena Now lost its grip on the reins of power. The upset victory of City Director Jess Hughston in 1981 signaled the beginning of its demise. Despite the formation of Pasadena Political Action Committee (PasPAC), which spent more than $40,000 in 1983 in an unsuccessful attempt to elect candidates the group favored, Pasadena Now has never regained its former clout.

These days, the group has only a shadow of its former might. It holds meetings twice monthly at 11 a.m. so as not to conflict with Rotary Club luncheons, said Bruce Ackerman, Chamber of Commerce executive director who also belongs to Pasadena Now and Pasadena Advocates. Some of the city’s younger activists have even given the group a mildly derisive tag: “Pasadena Then. “

“There is some similarity to the two groups,” Ackerman said. But the goals for Pasadena Advocates and Pasadena Now are different, he added. Pasadena Advocates will be less of a lobbying group and more of a fact-finding body.

“The group is very concerned that what’s going out in the way of development or growth-related issues is not necessarily both sides of the story,” Ackerman said. “Somebody needs to be in the lead position of stating business’s side of the position.”

Within that slant, the group hopes to encourage the expression of many points of view and ensure that all the facts about city issues are aired, Ackerman said. He added that the group has not yet decided to address any particular issue in the city.

But Cole noted that many of those involved in Pasadena Advocates also have a personal stake in seeing the city push ahead with development plans.

“They’re not just doing this as a hobby,” Cole said. “Larry Mielke is a developer, and it’s not just like he’s going to get a plaque at the end of a long and dedicated (community service) career. It means the success or failure of his development plans.”

Holt speculated that Mielke’s political baptism in 1987, when he beat back a voter referendum on his hotel project, convinced him of the value of disseminating political information.

Cole called the formation of the new group a “very sensible move” and a “pretty smart strategy.”

“Instead of using hard money in campaigns, they’re going to use soft money to mold political opinion in between campaigns,” Cole said. “It’s a very sensible way to operate on a day-in, day-out, week-in, week-out basis.”

He said the group is simply playing politics, fair and square.

“It’s a very well-planned move by a group of people who feel they should have more presence in the city,” Cole said. “It’s a free country.”

ACT spokeswoman Boggs said she is not troubled by the formation of a potential rival group. “I think that any time a group of people get together to try to effect change, that’s healthy,” she said. “I think it’s a positive thing, whether or not ACT will be on the same side.”