It’s No More Council Fights for Anaheim’s Kaywood

Leaving her post as Anaheim’s first and only city councilwoman for the last 16 years is a lot easier for Miriam Kaywood than she had imagined.

Gone are the stacks and stacks of literature, staff reports and the three local daily newspapers that she reportedly spent 90 hours each week plowing through, preparing for the weekly council meetings.

“I didn’t believe I could do that,” she said about tossing the volumes of paperwork cluttering her council office into recycle bins.

Also gone are bitter public disputes with Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilman William D. Ehrle, her rivals on the council over the past couple of years.

Hunter has a new council majority--which includes Ehrle and Councilman Bob Simpson--and Kaywood said she would rather leave the rancorous City Hall battles to her longtime political ally, Councilman Irv Pickler. It was Pickler, ironically, who survived citywide balloting on Nov. 6 by finishing 146 votes ahead of Kaywood.

“It would be total frustration,” said Kaywood, 67. “I would much rather not be there.”

Simpson replaced Kaywood, which leaves only men on the council, as it was until 1974 when Kaywood first won a seat. No other women have served on the council.

Though Kaywood was never considered by her colleagues to be a great champion of feminist values, the absence of a woman’s voice on the council is likely to be felt, she said.

“I never considered myself a spokesperson for women,” Kaywood said, although members of the Planning Commission often said she filled that role.

“They always used to say, ‘This is the women’s voice,’ and I would say, ‘Well, why then, why does it take six men?’ ”

Kaywood is proud of her fight to keep council salaries at a minimum, an issue that has resurfaced since the election with a plan to triple members’ pay.

She worked to prevent the proliferation of freeway billboards, and helped ensure residents’ rights to public hearings on proposed developments in their neighborhoods.

Although she doesn’t see herself as an unofficial watchdog, Kaywood recently watched the first meeting of the new council on television.

“I’m just worried that they’re not reading the agendas and they’re making bad decisions,” she said. As an example, she pointed to a drawn-out discussion that the council held about pinning rebuttal arguments to a ballot initiative on mobile home rent control.

The council voted 3 to 2 not to include a rebuttal.

“There could be the biggest misstatement on that ballot and the ordinance would go to the voters,” Kaywood said. “How could they tie their hands behind their backs like that? And if they didn’t know or understand what they did, (that’s) even worse.”

Her former colleagues had mixed comments about Kaywood’s departure. Most agreed that she will continue to have an effect on the city.

“She will not retire,” said Simpson, whom Kaywood did not support when he was seeking the city manager’s job in 1987.

“She will indeed be around. . . . Even though we didn’t always agree, we needed a loyal opposition,” Ehrle said of Kaywood.

Pickler, her longtime friend on the council, said that Kaywood made the city “a better place.”

“I think the citizens have got the best end of the deal,” Pickler added.

Kaywood, a widow, has few plans. She said she probably won’t join any city boards or commissions but hasn’t completely ruled out the possibility.

“The friends I have made through my council work have been a blessing for life,” she said. “I don’t want to think about or do anything yet but relax and enjoy my new baby granddaughter.”