Moving to Adjourn : Council Regular Hangs Up Haranguing to Retire

“Hey George, when are you going to be mayor?” shouts J.B. Eizak as he rides his bicycle past the spot next to the Huntington Beach Pier where George E. Arnold has been selling T-shirts for the past 15 years.

Arnold, 66, shrugs off the comment, puffs on a Salem Light and cracks a grin. A five-time unsuccessful candidate for City Council, Arnold is one of those City Hall fixtures who has made a life’s work of criticizing council members and their decisions.

But now Arnold says he’s had a change of heart and is leaving local politics--and the town where he spent most of his life--for good. He’s retiring to the desert town of Twentynine Palms, where he will live in a trailer on property owned by a longtime friend.

“It doesn’t make any sense to stay here. Why should I and keep taking a bunch of b.s.,” said Arnold, wearing his trademark baseball cap and baggy jeans, and as usual, missing his dentures. “The town’s all fouled up.”

Arnold said he’s tired of being harassed by city officials for selling T-shirts to finance his election campaigns. He said he’s had it with haranguing city leaders for failing to do what he believes is right.

Some believe Arnold has truly had some impact on council deliberations. Others see him as an oddball who just loves to hear himself talk.

“He has always been genuinely concerned about the things he believes in,” said Councilman Dave Garofalo, who is planning a going-away party for Arnold sometime next month. “I respect him for his passion, his beliefs and his attempts at changing the way things are done.

“He’s been around forever. He’s as much part of the community as the pier is.”

People who know Arnold--who in years past did a Popeye impersonation on the “Gong Show”--use words like “icon,” “institution,” and “fixture” to describe him. But they never call him a gadfly, a label that irritates Arnold.

“I think a lot of people have a lot to learn from him,” said Bob Biddle, a city planning commissioner who has known Arnold all his life. “A lot of people complain about their city government, but at least George does something about it.”

For the most part, however, council members have ignored issues Arnold has brought before them, prompting his five unsuccessful runs for a council seat.

Arnold, who attended his last council meeting Sept. 11, has chastised city leaders for not bringing more business to town and not having enough activities for young people. He has blasted downtown redevelopment efforts and what he considers inflated city employee salaries, and he has charged that nothing is being done about cleaning up “dirty” sidewalks downtown.

Biddle said there is little middle ground with Arnold. “I have this love-hate relationship with him. Five minutes after talking to him, he gets me aggravated. I’m probably his biggest critic. I tell him he’s full of baloney.

“But sometimes he has made some good observations. He has a pretty level head.”

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There are some in town who never saw eye-to-eye with Arnold, including ex-councilman and former police chief Earle Robitaille, who called Arnold a “village idiot” during a council meeting several years ago.

“He had made typical routine idiotic comments that had absolutely no truth in it,” Robitaille recalled. “I was up to my eyeballs listening to him spout off.”

Over the years, Biddle said he’s befriended Arnold and Arnold returns the favor by doing Biddle’s yard work. Biddle’s company, California Classics Screenprint Inc., has made T-shirts for Arnold for the past eight years.

Biddle also has helped Arnold buy a ‘60-something Dodge van and, more recently, an ’89 Hyundai, Biddle’s former car. The largess began about seven years ago, when the two were leaving a council meeting and Biddle saw Arnold ride home on his bike in the rain.

“I just felt sorry for him so I bought him a van. It was a piece of junk,” Biddle said.

Michele Turner, owner of the Sugar Shack, a downtown cafe, considers Arnold part of her family.

Arnold, who has had held a string of odd jobs over the years, including restaurant cook and construction worker, helps out at Turner’s eatery. Turner said she insists on giving him free meals in exchange.

“He’s very sensitive and he’s harmless,” said Turner, who has known Arnold for 26 years. “I think people sometimes take him the wrong way. But he does have a heart of gold. Even though he says he’s going to go away, deep inside he does care about what happens in Huntington Beach.”

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Arnold will sell T-shirts at the beach until the end of this month, when his permit to do so runs out. For years, he’s used the parking lot enterprise to fund his council campaigns and one short-lived run for governor in 1982. Arnold was cited a couple of years ago for not having a business license to sell the shirts, and police seized about 70 shirts.

Friends and acquaintances are betting that Arnold won’t be gone for good.

“Who the hell is going to keep the City Council in line?” 74-year-old Dick Keenan asked his friend of more than 25 years.

“He’ll be back,” added longtime acquaintance Sam Robinson, 72.

Arnold said he’ll prove the skeptics wrong.

“I think I’ll sit back and enjoy life. Plant a garden and watch TV. I’m glad to get out of here and do what I want to, have a few beers and relax.”