Lawndale Council Ousts City Manager : Politics: Council members said charges against James Arnold in an asbestos-handling case were a factor, but budget problems were a larger concern.

Lawndale City Manager James Arnold, who faces criminal misdemeanor charges in the demolition of three city buildings that contained asbestos, was ousted this week by a three-member majority of the City Council.

Arnold, the second city manager to be fired by the council within two years, will remain on the job until Aug. 10.

City officials said the council reached a consensus on Arnold’s departure during a closed session at the start of a budget workshop Tuesday night.

“It was a mutual agreement between everyone that it was just time for a change,” Councilman Larry Rudolph said in an interview Thursday. “We discussed it a little bit, and then he came in and we told him.”

Arnold described the agreement as amicable and said he has no hard feelings about the council’s decision. “The city’s been good to me,” he said. “Under the circumstances, it was a very amicable parting.”

Councilman William Johnson, who was elected last month, spearheaded the move to oust Arnold on Tuesday, proposing that the council meet in an urgent closed session. “The city needs new blood to get it rolling again,” Johnson said Thursday. “We do not have a bad relationship or bad feelings with Jim Arnold. We just feel the city of Lawndale has been through a lot of problems and turmoil in the past, and we feel a change is needed.”

Rudolph, a onetime Arnold supporter, and Councilwoman Carol Norman, a critic of Arnold, also supported the ouster. The three council members said the asbestos case was a factor in their decision but that problems with the city’s budget were a larger concern.

Arnold and Public Works Director James Sanders have pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of illegally disposing of hazardous waste and failing to comply with state and federal regulations regarding the handling of asbestos. The charges stemmed from the June, 1989, demolition of three dilapidated city-owned buildings.

The city has agreed to pay both men’s legal fees up to $20,000 each.

Mayor Harold Hofmann, the only council member who did not support Arnold’s ouster, said in an interview Thursday that he believes the asbestos case was a key factor in the decision but that the politics of the new City Council also contributed to Arnold’s undoing.

“Jim Arnold didn’t stand a chance to last very long after election time,” Hofmann said. “If the election had gone differently, he would have stayed around.”

Johnson was elected in April to fill the seat of former Councilman Dan McKenzie, an Arnold supporter who did not seek reelection. Hofmann was elected mayor in April, leaving his council seat vacant. That seat will be filled in a special election in November.

Hofmann said he believed his colleagues’ decision to remove Arnold before the city adopts a budget was poorly timed and that the council should take some responsibility for the financial crisis facing the city because it would not agree to boost the hotel occupancy tax, a revenue booster Arnold recently proposed.

The city has not yet adopted a preliminary budget, and reserve funds have declined to less than $100,000. Finance Director Judith Longman said delays in state funding could force the city to withhold some payments next week when monthly warrants for police, road maintenance and other essential services come due.

Arnold, who first joined the city as planning director in February, 1988, was named interim city manager in August of that year after former City Manager Daniel P. Joseph was fired for asking for Arnold’s resignation.

Joseph, who had been in his job less than six months, had given Arnold a highly critical evaluation in which he accused him of failing to take responsibility for his own actions, having poor attendance and being preoccupied with city politics. Two months later, Joseph was fired and Arnold was named his replacement.

Arnold said he has agreed to help the city recruit another manager before he leaves and to accept a severance package that will include three months’ pay. He also said he is considering whether he will resign from the city manager’s post to prevent the council from firing him. But he acknowledged, “It all boils down to the same thing--that you’re leaving because the policy people want it.”