Discord Surrounds Councilman Harmony : Politics: Critics are mounting recall effort over alleged physical and verbal attacks. He says he was only defending himself.

With his quaint name, genteel demeanor and neatly trimmed mustache, Diamond Bar City Councilman Clair Harmony seems to have just stepped out of a barbershop quartet.

But to hear his critics tell it, Harmony may be better suited for the boxing ring.

In the latest round of insults and recriminations among officials of the small San Gariel Valley city, the first-term councilman was served last week with his second recall notice for alleged abuses that include physical assaults on citizens and other council members.

Harmony said the recall campaign is an attempt to derail his investigation of what he calls “an Orange County-style financial debacle” in Diamond Bar.

But recall proponents and other council members say Harmony, 54, has shown a pattern of violent behavior that is out of place for a public official. Members of the recall campaign charge that during several fits of rage in and out of City Hall, Harmony body-slammed Councilwoman Phyllis Papen, picked fistfights with Councilmen Gary Miller and Gary Werner, and struck a citizen with a sledgehammer.

Neither Harmony nor the other council members deny that the fights took place; they just disagree over who started them.

“He’s irrational, he’s abusive and he’s dangerous,” Miller said. “There’s a place they used to put people like that, and it’s not on the City Council.”

No criminal charges have been filed as a result of the alleged attacks.

The drive against Harmony is the third attempt to recall a council member since Diamond Bar, a city of 55,000 mostly affluent residents near Pomona, was founded five years ago. A recall campaign this year against council members Papen and Miller on grounds of financial conflict of interest failed when the number of signatures gathered fell just short of the amount needed. A later attempt to recall Harmony and Councilwoman Eileen Ansari over their votes on development never got off the ground.

Harmony said he is confident that the recent accusations against him will be proved false.

“These are all lies and misinformation,” Harmony said. “These people have drawn their ranks together because I have exposed their whole operation as a good old boy network.”

Once organizers formally begin their campaign in January, they will have 120 days to qualify the recall for the ballot by gathering signatures of 6,000 registered Diamond Bar voters.

The recall notice against Harmony cites a long list of complaints, including an unauthorized endorsement on city stationery of Assemblyman Paul V. Horcher (I-Diamond Bar). But topping the list are the allegations of physical and verbal assaults on citizens, city staff and three council members.

“It’s conceivable that Mr. Harmony could have a violent disagreement with a single person,” said Nick Anis, a former City Council candidate and supporter of the recall effort. “But to have it with five people: women, private citizens, council members; kicking, shoving, punching, coming after people with sledgehammers, choking someone--is beyond reason. This man’s a bully and a maniac.”

Harmony maintains that he never provoked a fight, and only defended himself. He said the accusations of violence are retaliation for his efforts to correct what he said is a corrupt city accounting system.

In September, Harmony released a report on the city’s finances that documented what he said were “literally tens of thousands of dollars being spent without council authority and public review, companies hired without bids (and) regular budget overspending . . . in once case by as much as 171%.”

Some of Harmony’s criticisms were confirmed by an independent auditing firm. However, the firm also found “no material weaknesses” in the city’s accounting system.

The fights occurred in a particularly venomous political climate in which Diamond Bar council members and their constituents routinely accuse each other of everything from incompetence to extortion.

The first confrontation involving Harmony occurred in October, 1993, when Diamond Bar resident Scott Lovell said he found several of Harmony’s campaign signs on a city street and--believing they were abandoned plywood--loaded them on the back of his truck.

Harmony, who said many of his signs had been stolen during that campaign, said he approached Lovell and began trying to pull the signs out with a sledgehammer. Lovell said a struggle ensued in which Harmony struck him on the hand with the hammer.

But court records cite several witnesses who said Lovell appeared to be the aggressor, and that he choked Harmony, pushed him onto a car and kicked him in the groin area. Lovell admitted in testimony that he kicked Harmony in the groin but said he did so to push him away. The officer who took Lovell’s complaint against Harmony said there was no visible injury to his hand. Lovell could not be reached for comment.

Lovell was charged with petty theft for attempting to steal Harmony’s signs, and was found not guilty. He sued Harmony for defamation for publishing false accusations against him in a newsletter. The case was dismissed.

The wrangle with Miller took place early in the year during a closed City Council session that Harmony said involved litigation against Papen and Miller. A dispute between Miller and Harmony erupted into a nose-to-nose argument, and ended with Miller hurling Harmony across the conference table and off the other end, according to both men’s accounts.

Harmony said he was the one assaulted in that case, but Miller said Harmony provoked his action.

“When somebody gets three inches from your face and is bumping you with their chest, and you ask them three times to step back, you remove them,” Miller said.

Ansari, who so far has remained outside the fray, was at the meeting when the fight broke out.

“I think it was equal, to tell you the truth,” the councilwoman said. “What (Harmony) was doing was badgering Gary Miller, so both of them got up at the same time.”

But it was not a one-time event, she said.

“Clair has a tendency, when he gets angry, to get in people’s space,” she said. “I think that when you become a councilperson you have to curtail your anger a little more.”

On another occasion, Councilwoman Papen said, Harmony slammed his body against her during an argument in City Hall until staff members intervened. She refused to disclose the nature of the conversation, saying it was private.

Councilman Werner said he witnessed the confrontation. Shortly after, during a meeting between city officials and visiting Chinese officials across the street, Werner said, Harmony asked him to go outside. An argument followed. Werner said Harmony, whom he described as being upset over his conversation with Papen, pulled on his jacket and tie until Werner slugged him in the chest to stop him.

Harmony tells a different version.

“Werner struck me twice,” he said. “I grabbed his arm to stabilize him and hold him away from me.”

Sheriff Capt. Larry Waldie said there were no charges filed, or even reports of any of the incidents involving council members. Werner and Harmony said they discussed the incident with Waldie, who persuaded them not to file reports.

“I talked to the sheriff’s office, and was going to file a report, but he said that because (Harmony) would just file one, the two would cancel each other out, and it would make the city look silly,” Werner said.