Recall Threatened as Pasadena Sticks by Manager Choice

The city directors’ decision to stick with Toledo City Manager Philip Hawkey as Pasadena’s new city manager has touched off a flurry of organizing by the city’s suddenly united minority groups and threats of a recall campaign against two board members who voted for Hawkey.

Targeted for recall are Directors William Paparian, an Armenian-American whose vote for Hawkey particularly outraged many Pasadena minorities, and John Crowley, who represents District 1, where 60% of the population are minorities.

“These are the two who are not representing their districts,” said Joe Hopkins, an attorney and publisher of The Pasadena Journal, a 6-month-old black weekly newspaper. “Paparian represents himself as a minority but, if anything, he has wielded a knife stronger than the rest,” Hopkins said.

Paparian and Crowley joined Mayor William Thomson and Director Kathyrn Nack in voting April 18 to offer Hawkey the job of replacing City Manager Donald McIntyre, who retires in June after 17 years in the post. Directors Rick Cole, Chris Holden and Jess Hughston voted against Hawkey, who is white. They favored black candidate Jack Bond, manager of Durham County, N.C.

But six days later, after more than 200 people attended a board meeting to protest Hawkey’s selection, the board voted to reconsider.

The protesters said Hawkey had engaged in racial discrimination in the 1988 firing of Pete Culp, a black Toledo administrator in charge of federal housing funds. Culp filed a racial discrimination claim against Hawkey and the city of Toledo with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, arguing that he should have been demoted with severance pay rather than fired for alleged mismanagement of the housing money.

The commission found “probable cause” that Culp had been discriminated against in the denial of benefits. A hearing is scheduled July 18.

The Pasadena directors reviewed the Ohio commission documents during a three-hour closed meeting Monday and concluded by the same 4-3 vote that allegations of racial discrimination were unfounded and that Hawkey should be offered the Pasadena job.

Hawkey has said he will accept the post starting June 18, pending the successful outcome of contract negotiations that could result in a maximum annual salary of $125,000, plus financial assistance in buying a home in Pasadena.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Thomson said the Ohio commission’s finding was based on comparing Culp’s treatment to past favorable treatment of white administrators, years before Hawkey was city manager.

Thomson also pointed to a press conference Friday in Toledo in which Culp called for an end to racial discord and asked that Hawkey be allowed to “get on with his life.” Thomson agreed, saying that Hawkey was the best choice for Pasadena and should be given a chance.

“The proof of the person is going to be in the performance here,” Thomson said. Hughston and Cole made similar pleas.

But those who spoke to the board Tuesday weren’t swayed. “The pain we feel is a lot different than yours,” said the Rev. Roland Jenneford, pastor of the New Guiding Light Missionary Baptist Church.

Tony Stewart, representing the Altadena and Pasadena chapters of the NAACP, said that although Hawkey wasn’t a racist, his actions allowed racism to exist and that he should have done more to combat it.

The Rev. Robert Holt, a member of the Pasadena/Altadena Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, said: “The wrath of God is great, and it will come down on Pasadena and California because good people refused to do the right thing.”

The Rev. Stanley Lewis, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church, said the four directors who voted for Hawkey missed the point. “The real issue is not racism in Toledo and Hawkey, but . . . racism in Pasadena,” Lewis said. “Pasadena is in real trouble. Pasadena is about to embark on a new era. No justice, no peace.”

A few of the speakers thanked the board for uniting the city’s minorities, including Latinos, Asians and blacks. They said voter registration drives will begin soon. Hopkins said his group will look for candidates to run for directors’ seats now held by Nack, Crowley and Paparian, all of whom, along with Cole, face reelection next year.