A Low-Key Style Opens Doors for New Councilman : Politics: Alan Lowenthal gains foothold by championing causes for the downtrodden, but even staunch conservatives take notice of the former professor.

The apartment manager was livid when she entered the office of Alan S. Lowenthal, university professor and community activist turned city councilman.

What did Lowenthal think he was doing, voting to repeal a law that lets police cite or arrest the homeless for camping on public property? Don’t ease up, she said, clamp down on the homeless on public and private property.

“I clean human defecation off my property that’s been done in the night,” the manager said. “I have tenants who are ready to leave.”

Lowenthal remained calm and professorial. He explained his unsuccessful attempt to repeal the ordinance.

“I don’t believe that I stand for trespassing, trampling on people’s property,” said Lowenthal, a soft-spoken man. “The only thing I wanted to do was reduce the criminality. To think you’re going to eliminate the problem by citing them, you’re not.”

After 30 minutes of discussion, the apartment manager said she felt better. At Lowenthal’s suggestion, she agreed to join neighborhood associations that have organized to fight crime and other problems, including vagrancy.

Lowenthal had another recruit.

Since taking office a year ago, the councilman has allayed many of the questions and fears raised about his politics during the election campaign.

As head of the liberal watchdog group Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, he was suspect. Many conservative business and community leaders saw Lowenthal as a wild-eyed leftist who championed social programs for the poor even if it meant destroying the city’s business climate and property values.

But in the past 12 months, Lowenthal has retained the loyalty of most supporters while winning the admiration of many detractors. He has acquired a reputation as a voice of reason and as one of the hardest-working and best-prepared council members.

“He listens. And if you pour information on him, he’s subject to a change of position, and I like that,” said Douglas S. Drummond, one of the council’s most conservative members. “Now, I don’t always like how he votes, but I’m sure glad to work with him.”

Lowenthal also has emerged as an effective force on major issues.

He played key roles in the efforts to keep the Queen Mary in town and to save the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. He also campaigned successfully to open the city’s first Community Police Center, on 7th Street in his district.

Lowenthal has tried to move on liberal social issues as well, but so far, has met resistance.

The councilman was stymied last month when he sought to repeal the ordinance banning homeless encampments. And last month, the City Council turned thumbs down on a proposal to extend employee benefits to city workers in domestic partnerships. Lowenthal, a strong advocate of gay and lesbian rights, pushed the proposal, which had languished in committee for more than two years.

His support for domestic partnerships has drawn the most fire from constituents--primarily fundamentalist religious groups that consider homosexuality immoral.

“There’s almost a disregard for the Christian community . . . almost a disdain for it,” said the Rev. Mark Chappell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Long Beach. “I’m not going to go on a crusade against Alan Lowenthal, but I’m going to encourage my members to consider candidates’ actions in light of the Scriptures.”

Lowenthal said he voted his conscience, and he expects to champion the cause again.

“I don’t think the people in my district will make a big thing out of it,” said Lowenthal, who represents an area with more gay and lesbian residents and businesses than any other part of the city. “I wouldn’t have changed what I did on that issue. It was a basic issue of civil rights.”

Lowenthal, 52 and the divorced father of two sons, calls himself a progressive dedicated to political and social reform.

His 14th floor office at City Hall is decorated with symbols of civil rights causes and liberal politics.

There’s a photo of African-American activist Jesse Jackson, and an award from the predominantly gay Long Beach Lambda Democratic Club. A framed newspaper clip hangs on the wall: “Never again. Survivor tells of death camps . . . “

Lowenthal, who describes himself as a cultural Jew, said his commitment to activism is rooted in the Holocaust. The atrocities hit home during a visit shortly after World War II from a cousin just out of a Nazi prison camp.

“All he could eat was baby food,” said Lowenthal, who was about 4 at the time. “I had never seen anyone so emaciated, so sickly. It had a tremendous impact on me.”

Lowenthal’s specialty as a professor at Cal State Long Beach is community psychology. Similar to sociology, the discipline seeks to understand and find solutions to social ills.

It is not just an academic exercise for Lowenthal. In the 1970s, he helped establish storefront counseling centers in Long Beach aimed at keeping children in school. He joined Long Beach Area Citizens Involved more than a decade ago and became its president in 1988, working to reform local school board elections and pushing for low-income housing, programs for the homeless and gay rights.

Some of the groups he has helped backed him in last year’s campaign for City Council, when he walked the streets promising improvements in public safety, education and job opportunities for youth, and campaign reform.

Lowenthal’s is a diverse district, encompassing the high rises downtown and expensive condominiums along Ocean Boulevard. It includes the Port of Long Beach, neighborhoods of California bungalows and apartment houses. There are plenty of homeless people as well.

Conservatives shuddered when Lowenthal scored an upset victory in 1992 over the well-financed Wallace Edgerton, a 17-year incumbent.

Lowenthal hit the ground running. He impressed some political observers with his forceful stand in favor of keeping the city-owned Queen Mary. The ship closed and hundreds of workers were left unemployed last year when the Walt Disney Co. declined to renew its operating lease on the tourist attraction.

In a key meeting last September, Lowenthal berated harbor officials, accusing them of trying too hard to sell the ship to a Hong Kong firm.

The City Council eventually took control of the ship. The move was supported by many business leaders, who feared the loss of tourist dollars, as well as hundreds of jobs on the ship. A new operator was brought in, and since the tourist season began last month, the Queen Mary has been drawing record crowds.

“He was right there,” said Councilman Warren Harwood, who also supported keeping the ship in town. “The Queen Mary is there because of Councilman Alan Lowenthal, Harwood and a few others.”

Lowenthal won more political points when he participated in the city’s successful lobbying effort to keep open the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which provides about 4,000 jobs.

He religiously attended meetings of Save Our Shipyard, a coalition of workers, union officials and business people.

Lowenthal, along with other city officials, testified in Washington before federal officials who were deciding the fate of the shipyard.

Lowenthal’s other key accomplishment is the establishment of the city’s first Community Police Center, which he promised shortly after Election Day. The city provided a $15,000 start-up grant for the center, which is staffed by a retired police officer and volunteers.

The storefront center on 7th Street provides a place for residents to talk with police, express their concerns and give tips on crimes. Since the center opened in March, about 10 stolen cars have been recovered because of residents’ tips, said center spokeswoman Michele Harris.

“Lowenthal and his office have been there every step of the way helping us in every way they could,” Harris said.

Generally, the reviews of Lowenthal’s performance are positive.

The business community is still watching him, but he has received high marks for his hard work, availability and willingness to consider all sides of an issue.

“I feel he’s more accessible than most,” said restaurant owner John Morris, president of the Downtown Long Beach Associates. “He’s a very intelligent person. It’s refreshing.”

But there are some critics, who say Lowenthal hasn’t done enough.

David Carden, a spokesman for the citywide community group Just Five, said Lowenthal should have done more to cut municipal spending during recent budget hearings to help the financially strapped city.

Jose Ulloa, the leader of a neighborhood organization in Lowenthal’s district echoed the concern. Ulloa, of Neighborhoods Organized for a Safer Environment, said Lowenthal should have strongly opposed raises for city employees to free up money to hire more police officers.

Lowenthal proposed that the council decrease raises for management employees from 5% to 3%, which it did. But that was not enough, Ulloa said.

Lowenthal said he initially proposed eliminating raises for city employees, but settling for a 3% increase was a good compromise.

Lowenthal has drawn rave reviews from the two organizations that helped him into office, Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, and Lambda.

“I think he’s accomplished more in a year than most of those folks do in four years,” said Marc Coleman, president of the citizens group.

“He’s been outstanding,” said Paul Self, president of Lambda. “Good representation was long overdue.”

Lowenthal says he will remain loyal to his liberal political roots. In the next couple of weeks, he plans to present a proposal for city campaign reform. It would impose contribution and spending limits, as well as partial public financing of campaigns.

But at the same time, Lowenthal said, he will be mindful and responsive to the needs of his diverse district and the city--including the conservative business and property owners who opposed his election. A year in office has made him see things differently, Lowenthal said.

“I’m still the same person, but I realized that I have to listen to different points of view,” he said.

But as Lowenthal drove through his district on a recent afternoon, it was clear that he will have much to reconcile in the future.

He motioned to the homeless men sleeping and standing in Bixby Park. Lowenthal said he supports a proposal to establish a service center to help train and provide other services for the homeless.

But many residents of the costly oceanfront condos and other nearby residences would just as soon see the transients arrested.

“People get on my case a lot about this park, the transients,” Lowenthal said. But, he added, “It’s a very complex issue. You just can’t arrest (homeless) people and put them in jail.”