Columbus and Rose Parade Prove to Be Thorny Mixture

Ordinarily, Christopher Columbus wouldn’t mean any more to Pasadena than he would to Palmdale or Pomona.

But then the Tournament of Roses picked a smiling Spanish nobleman--a direct descendant of Columbus--as the grand marshal of the Rose Parade, and suddenly civic Pasadena is in a stew.

Cristobal Colon seemed a perfect choice to give the 103-year-old parade a little extra spritz of historical elegance, said Tournament of Roses President Robert L. Cheney. The annual floats-and-bands gala coincides with the start of the quincentennial celebration of his arrival in the Americas--and the parade’s theme is “Voyages of Discovery.”

“He’s the one individual who most encompassed our theme,” said Cheney, a retired aerospace engineer and businessman.

The choice, however, didn’t sit well with Rick Cole, a city councilman who also holds the post of vice mayor. He launched a blistering attack on the choice.

Colon, whose lofty titles include Duke of Veragua and Duke of la Vega, is “a symbol of greed, slavery, rape and genocide,” Cole said in a statement. His selection, Cole said, shows that the Tournament of Roses is “totally controlled by aging white men,” out of touch with contemporary Pasadena.

Cole called upon the tournament to open up its executive committee to women and minorities. “White males have a total monopoly of power in the Tournament of Roses,” he said. “This exclusive club does not reflect Pasadena today.”

For Pasadena, this was powerful stuff.

“This has the potential of becoming a major deal,” Councilman William Paparian said nervously.

Cole, who has a reputation on the City Council for being outspoken, this time had taken on the institution that put Pasadena on the map.

The Tournament of Roses, which began 103 years ago with the residents of “Millionaire’s Row” stuffing their carriages with flowers on New Year’s Day and racing up and down Orange Grove Boulevard, is expected to contribute $500,000 to the city next year while helping many Pasadena businesses grow fat from visitors’ dollars.

“It’s also a significant contributor through all the goodwill generated by the parade and the football game,” said Councilman William Thomson, the only council member who is also a tournament member. “We have a unique partnership. This isn’t a very polite way to treat one’s partner.”

Tournament of Roses officials have mostly maintained a frosty silence. “The only thing I can say is strictly on the senior issue,” said William Flinn, assistant executive director. “What is ‘aging’? Is that bad?”

The tournament’s executive committee and its other committee heads are all white men, Flinn conceded, but those positions go to the people who have seniority in the organization. The general membership of the organization is much more diverse, he said. Of 825 tournament members, there are 175 women and “numerous” blacks and Latinos.

“We’ve never counted them,” Flinn said.

Some of Cole’s longtime colleagues and associates view his remarks with pained forbearance.

“That’s Rick,” said Bruce Ackerman, executive vice president of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce.

Cole, 37, a former aide to Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and an independent public relations consultant, often takes unpopular positions. A few years ago, he supported a move to overturn Pasadena’s system of government, having a directly elected mayor instead of a city manager as the city’s chief executive officer. That idea quickly died for lack of support.

He responds with a shrug to the criticism. “This is what I believe to be the truth, and I don’t understand why telling the truth should be considered impolitic.”

Representing a district that is about 60% non-white, he has been a forceful advocate for the rights of minorities. Some of his colleagues accuse him of occasionally “grandstanding,” such as the time he called a press conference on his own to announce census figures.

Mayor Jess Hughston has been observing the vice mayor since they met at Pasadena’s Blair High School in 1971, Cole as the student body president and Hughston as a teacher of U.S. government.

“He’s always been very liberal in his politics,” says Hughston, who favors the Colon selection. “But in his later years, he hasn’t come on as strong. This (the Columbus statement) surprises me. It’s more typical of his high school days.”

Outside City Hall, reaction to the Columbus statement has been largely negative. Members of minority groups tend to agree with Cole about the leadership of the Tournament of Roses, but they don’t like his treatment of Colon.

“He (Colon) is a guest of the city,” said Toni Stewart, president of the Altadena branch of the NAACP. “I think Cole was cruel and insulting. It should be embarrassing to the city.”

The historical questions about Columbus are, of course, just the latest in a widening debate about the quincentennial. Richard Hill, a Tuscarora Indian who directs the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., agrees with Cole.

“Unfortunately, the price of American freedom has been paid for in Indian blood,” said Hill, who is participating today in his city in a memorial to the tribes of Indians that didn’t survive what he calls the North American holocaust. “I agree that it’s time to reflect on false hero worship.”

But George Padilla, a member of the Pasadena Board of Education, questioned the relevance of that issue to the tournament’s selection of a grand marshal. “I don’t see how you can hold a man accountable for the actions of his ancestors, or even his parents,” Padilla said.

Cole, so far, has not followed up his blast with any official act to influence the Tournament of Roses. But already, his remarks have stirred questions of his own political future. If the longstanding tradition of biennial succession is observed next year, Cole will become Pasadena’s mayor in May.

A few conservatives in town are suggesting that Cole has shown that he’s not “mayoral material.”

“When Rick becomes mayor of the city, he’s going to have to realize that he’s the mayor of the entire city,” Thomson chided.

“He has a right to his opinion,” said Councilman Chris Holden. “But it causes a lot of concern for those who are growing up and learning about Columbus. He’s shattering an impression of what they’ve learned over the years. Rightly or wrongly, he’s going to cause a stir.”

For Cole, the issue is about “truth.” According to the most recent census statistic, 53% of the city is now non-white. “There are more people in Pasadena descended from the victims of Columbus than from the victors,” he said.