Cole Has Learned His Lesson in Politics : Government: The former Blair High School student will assume the post of mayor from his former high school teacher, Jess Hughston.

Now the teacher moves aside and the student steps forward.

Vice Mayor Rick Cole, who as a Blair High School senior 21 years ago was taught American history by Mayor Jess Hughston, on Monday assumes the city’s top post for the next two years.

The changing of the guard has put many around City Hall in a summing-up mood, assessing Hughston’s mayoralty and prognosticating about Cole’s. For the two men, the event is loaded with symbolism and meaning.

“Both symbolically and in reality, it feels like passing the torch from generation to generation,” said Cole, 38, who plans to celebrate with a party in front of City Hall on Monday evening, complete with fireworks, gospel music and rock ‘n’ roll.

The Pasadena mayoralty, passed every two years to the council member with the longest tenure without having been mayor, is largely ceremonial. The mayor can make appointments to commissions, a power shared with other council members, and has the ability to set the long-term agenda.

“I always tell people that the mayor’s power can be summed up in two words: ‘Not much,’ ” Hughston said.

Nevertheless, the post gives its occupant a great deal of visibility and a certain moral authority to one’s long-range goals.

Cole has already proclaimed that the theme of his mayoralty will be “Build a Greater City,” meaning, he said, that he intends to try to implement many of the idealistic concepts Hughston and the council have endorsed in recent years.

“It’s time to roll up our sleeves and make those things come true,” Cole said.

Hughston, 68, a soft-spoken, gray-haired man who, on rare occasions, wielded the gavel at council meetings in an authoritarian manner, said he will always remember his student--the then 17-year-old Cole--as an appealing, outspoken young radical.

“The world is catching up with some of the ideas he had,” said Hughston, who will remain on the council for at least one more year.

Cole still sees Hughston as “my former teacher, my mentor.” But the new mayor said that much of what he has learned from Hughston has been what not to do.

“Obviously, I’m going to be much more aggressive, communicative, hands-on than Jess,” Cole said.

In his 11 years on the council, Hughston has established himself as a decent man, strongly committed to improving the lot of the city’s poor and middle-class. He has also been seen as something of an amiable eccentric.

During his final speech as mayor last Tuesday, Hughston commended city staff for bringing the Sugar Bowl to Pasadena, meaning the Super Bowl, which will be in the Rose Bowl next year. He had to interrupt his speech for a time because the last page of the address had disappeared.

After a sputtering start as the “human services” mayor two years ago, Hughston and his council colleagues finally approved a human-services strategy and action plan Tuesday. The plan seeks to bolster day care, services for senior citizens, and other services with a small amount of revenue and a lot of sharing of information about programs already available.

In effect, the plan is “marching orders” for Patsy Lane, the city’s new human services director, Hughston said.

Admittedly, the new initiative comes at a time when all cities face shrinking revenues, Hughston said.

“It looks like we’re going to have to cut to the bone--not the police, the fire department, the library or public works--but human services,” he said.

Hughston’s mayoralty was blemished by a series of passionate controversies: a dispute with Sheriff Sherman Block over remarks made by Hughston’s colleagues regarding “racist” deputies that almost affected security for this year’s Tournament of Roses Parade, the hiring of white City Manager Philip Hawkey over two black contenders and an attempt by some council members to increase their salaries.

Hughston has no regrets, he said. He opposed Hawkey’s hiring but immediately extended an olive branch to the former Toledo city manager when it was apparent that a majority of the council favored him. He also opposed the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to raise the salaries of council members from about $6,000 annually to $38,400.

Hughston “was a calming presence” after those two imbroglios, Cole said.

The former high school history teacher offered appeasement to Block by sending a letter of apology for his colleagues’ remarks--over the objections of some council members. That action prompted the sheriff to send deputies to help police the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game.

“I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad it worked,” Hughston said recently.

Cole takes the mayor’s chair with a reputation as a perceptive--though sometimes long-winded--analyst with a penchant for making occasional undiplomatic comments.

Tournament of Roses members still seethe about Cole’s attack on their organization for naming a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus as grand marshal of this year’s parade. Cole suggested that the organization was dominated by “aging white men” and that it should hastily open its ranks to others.

Councilman William Thomson said Cole’s initial support of the salary hike, which enraged many citizens, as well as his Columbus statement, alienated a lot of people.

“They are examples of the exercise of poor judgment that has not endeared him to an awful lot of people,” Thomson said.

“I am what I am,” Cole said with a shrug. “I grew up in this town. And everybody has known me since high school. I intend to use the passion and experience of how I was shaped, growing up in Pasadena, to make Pasadena a greater city.”

Other council members worry that Cole will concern himself with the minutiae of city government, interfering with city staff.

“We pay the city manager a lot of money to do a job,” Councilman Chris Holden said. “And there’s only one city manager, until we change the structure of our city government.”

Councilman Isaac Richard, known for his own outspokenness, contends that Cole is “wishy-washy” on some issues.

For example, Richardson said, Cole was one of the driving forces behind the growth-management initiative, which placed strict restrictions on new development in the city two years ago, but he later bowed to criticism of the measure.

“Now he finds himself compromising on it, whether he admits it or not,” Richard said. “What happens is he doesn’t satisfy anyone.”

The city has agreed to present the initiative to the voters again in November, after completion of parts of a new General Plan, setting long-range goals for development.

Cole responds to his critics sweepingly, saying they fall into two categories.

“There is a large group of people who either don’t know me, or who are uncomfortable with what they do know about me,” he said.

Cole said he will work to reassure that group that he has made the transition from an outsider on the council to a coalition-building mayor.

“Then there is a small group of people who want Pasadena to stay in the hands of a tiny clique of white people,” Cole said. “That group of people is perfectly justified in fearing what I represent. But the world has already passed those people by. They’re an irrelevance.”

More than half of Pasadena’s residents are minorities, Cole said.

Despite his critics, there are many who look toward Cole’s mayoralty as a bright occasion.

“I see the coming of age of a product of the 1960s,” Councilman William Paparian said. “He’s a product of the Kennedy era, with values and outlook on the world indelibly shaped by that era. That’s what he’s going to bring as mayor.”