San Gabriel Valley Cover Story : Building Power Blocks : Residents in Pasadena and elsewhere have formed neighborhood associations to deal with crime and other social woes. They say the groups give them an ‘empowering feeling.’

Alejandro Mendoza could not get to sleep that Friday night.

Earlier that day, March 19, 1993, his three young daughters and their baby-sitter had been held up at gunpoint. Although no one was hurt and only a few valuables taken, the crime instilled a deep wound of victimization.

Mendoza said the thought that “something has to be to done for my family to get back on their feet” kept him up all night. “It was an incredibly fearful night.”

By 9 the following morning, Mendoza and his wife had distributed 100 flyers around the Pasadena neighborhood asking people to meet with his family to discuss what had happened. He was surprised that afternoon when about two dozen people gathered at the Jefferson Park corner where Mendoza’s daughters were robbed.

“The powerless feeling we had the previous night turned into an empowering feeling,” Mendoza said. “It was subtle, but in retrospect it was happening.” Without realizing what he was doing, Mendoza started the Jefferson Park Neighborhood Assn.

The association was one of three in Pasadena to receive an award for its accomplishments at the Neighborhoods USA Conference. The conference, which convenes neighborhood groups from across the nation, ended Sunday in Pasadena.

Residents throughout Pasadena, recognizing that city and state budget crunches have left government less able to deal with crime and other social problems, have taken the reins of social action to fix local problems by forming neighborhood groups. The city had 30 such associations in 1987; the number has tripled today.

It’s part of a nationwide movement of people who are “starting to reclaim responsibility for things that the government has been doing . . . for what government can’t do or what government doesn’t do very well,” said Daniel Kemmis, author of “Community and the Politics of Place.”

For the past several years, Kemmis said, the public has been shirking responsibility.

“It’s reflected in the language,” he said. “People very rarely refer to themselves as citizens any more. They’re much more likely to refer to themselves as taxpayers. The attitude toward government is, ‘I pay the bills, you provide the service.’ And that just does not work.”

The neighborhood association represents a nascent shifting away from that attitude, he said.

“People are asking, ‘Well, how are we going to get the job done?’ ” he said. “Neighborhood associations are just one of a number of ways of reknitting the social fabric.”

In doing so, the Pasadena groups have rid parks of graffiti, set up impressive youth programs and, in one case, supplied and drilled themselves for earthquake survival. In every case, they report a bonus: They rediscovered their neighbors and a sense of community.

Mendoza said safety was the only issue on his mind when he sent out those early flyers, but the results have transcended that hope.

“The park is prettier now,” he said. “It is cleaner now. It is completely void of graffiti now. And my best friends in the U.S.A. are in that neighborhood.”

The city has encouraged the neighborhood groups to form through its Neighborhood Connections Office, started in 1986.

“Getting people to recognize the benefit in organizing usually starts with some sort of crisis,” said Cynthia Abbott, office director. “More often than not, that involves an issue of public safety.”

City leaders say neighborhood organizations simply help get things done. “Communities can organize to achieve goals without government and can also organize to harness government,” said Pasadena Councilman Bill Crowfoot, who sprung from a leadership role in the powerful Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Assn. to the City Council last year. “I have learned in the last 10 to 12 months I have been in office that when the neighborhoods are agitated over an issue, the city will respond faster.”

Navarro Avenue Tremont-Howard Assn., a newly formed northwest Pasadena group, asked the city to donate several large trash containers for a block cleanup day last month.

The city went a step further and loaned three trash containers for each block along Navarro between Washington Boulevard and Woodbury Road, said association leader Joe Rodriguez. The trash bins enabled participants to rid several vacant lots of accumulated junk that residents did not have the means to cart off themselves.

Pasadena’s oldest neighborhood association, the Linda Vista/Annondale Assn., founded in 1930, teamed up with the city to create nine “pocket parks” on derelict lands in the west Arroyo neighborhood. Former association President Marilyn De Simone said the association put up the money to develop small green spaces while the city helps maintain them.

Mendoza’s Jefferson Park group convinced the city that it should provide equipment and supervision so it could tear down an old shuffleboard court and awning that had become a congregating spot for drug dealers and drunks.

“You have to make the city aware of certain problems in the neighborhood,” said Jefferson Park President Phil Novelly. “It’s amazing what you do if you all work together.”

Councilman Rick Cole said that the city needs neighborhood groups as a conduit between City Hall and citizens. However, that wasn’t always the prevailing sentiment.

The initial flurry of neighborhood organizing in Pasadena came in the late ‘70s through the Urban League, which had federal money to help middle- and lower-income neighborhoods develop a stronger voice in city affairs. By the early ‘80s, however, the city’s relationship with neighborhoods had become fractious as conflicts occurred over rapid downtown growth. According to Cole, the city tried to slow down neighborhood organizing to keep down the number of adversaries.

Neighborhood Connections’ Abbott said a turning point came when the Orange Heights neighborhood association complained virulently about a 1985 utility rate hike passed without the community receiving adequate information. “They were very vocal about not having input,” Abbott said.

The dispute spurred a study and a paper by Cole that led to the formation of Neighborhood Connections to develop a closer relationship between the city and its neighborhoods.

The office does everything from advise blocks on how to start a crime-watch program to pointing groups in the direction of city, state or federal grants that can help them develop community educational programs.

The Navarro Avenue Tremont-Howard Assn. started as a crime-watch organization and has developed youth education programs that reward students who stay in school and get a “C” average with a trip to Magic Mountain; students who meet higher academic goals win a trip to Washington. Organizers also monitor the students’ schoolwork, help arrange tutoring when they need it, and introduce them to various careers through a speaker program.

The Prepared Block Assn. in northwest Pasadena has set up an elaborate system to protect residents after an earthquake. Pre-assigned residents would go house to house turning off gas and water lines; they have maps showing all the shut-off valves. The street has stored enough supplies to see all residents through two weeks without outside help; block captains would dispatch trained first-aid teams to houses flying a red rag outside, a signal of injury. As have other neighborhood efforts, it has brought residents closer together.

“I think it’s filling a void in every neighbor’s heart--that they wanted to get to know their neighbors but didn’t know how,” said group organizer Bunny Wilson.

The Bungalow Heaven Assn. in north-central Pasadena was formed by Crowfoot in the late ‘80s to lobby for landmark district status. It has since installed $30,000 in playground equipment in McDonald Park, established youth scholarships and even loaned money and expertise to nascent groups.

“Once you have that community feeling,” said Mendoza of the Jefferson Park group, “the feeling of empowerment can drive you to do things you never thought you could do.”