‘Range Rider’ Tackles Her Task Head-On

They’re called “range riders”--seasoned bureaucrats that small cities lure out of retirement to ride into town as temporary department heads. Sometimes, they ride into a mess and have to whip the city into shape.

She has only been South Pasadena’s interim city manager for two months, but Linda Holmes has been living up to the Western image. She has already hired a private eye to examine the scandal-ridden Police Department and ordered an investigation of the former assistant city manager, who resigned after he was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement.

“When I accepted this position,” said the soft-spoken Holmes in an interview sandwiched between bouts of crisis management Thursday afternoon, “I thought South Pasadena was a very quiet, lovely community with one issue, and that was the 710 Freeway.”

The 52-year-old San Gabriel Valley native would appear as much at home at a South Pasadena garden party as laying down the law in the civic halls of power. But she is a manager few would want to cross.

A no-nonsense, intensely professional supervisor who is supremely confident in her abilities after 33 years of municipal work, Holmes has only one decoration on her office wall: the International City Managers Assn.’s code of ethics. (There isn’t even a photo of her miniature Doberman pinscher named Smith--”as in Smith & Wesson,” she said, smiling.)

“She is a top-notch professional,” Mayor Dorothy Cohen said. “She has an air of quiet competence and authority.”

Admiring City Council members have asked Holmes to stay, but she belongs to a growing, wandering breed of bureaucrat who work only temporary assignments so as not to jeopardize their government pensions--or the freedom of retirement. Experts say that most “range riders” have calm runs in their adoptive cities. Someone like Holmes, though, may be perfectly situated to shake things up.

“If you’re worried about keeping your job, you can’t do it,” said Sally Reed, who was Los Angeles County’s chief administrative officer until this year, when she tired of interference from elected officials and took a job heading the state Department of Motor Vehicles. “You have to be prepared to walk away if your values are challenged.”

Holmes has shown a willingness to do just that. She quit her 10-year post as city manager of Walnut last year, saying she would not heed political bosses who, she contended, wanted to muzzle her when she criticized a “white pride” group.

Crediting her Texas parents for teaching her the value of honesty, she smiled and laughed softly when asked about her no-nonsense attitude, but the steel shone through.

“If in doing my job I find any problems, I’m very straightforward in facing these problems and dealing with them,” she said.

It was that attitude that allowed Holmes--then an 18-year-old, divorced single mom--to take a job as a clerk-typist in West Covina while attending night school. As she worked her way through the city bureaucracy, she met her future husband, Ronald Holmes.

He became police chief of West Covina and she went to Buena Park as assistant city manager, then to Walnut, where she served as assistant city manager for five months before becoming city manager.

Linda Holmes doesn’t like to discuss her departure from Walnut. “They were nine of the happiest and most successful years of my life” is all she will say of those 10 years.

In February 1995, Holmes announced her retirement, saying a council member had tried to muffle her criticisms of a private group calling itself the Walnut Anglo American Club.

The councilwoman whom Holmes blamed for her troubles did not return a call from The Times on Thursday. Another councilwoman, Bert Ashley, said only: “I do not want to discuss the former city manager.”

Although she retired, Holmes placed her name in a database maintained by the League of California Cities, which is used by municipalities looking for interim administrators for departments ranging from finance to fire.

Clark Goecker, the executive secretary of the league’s Public Service Skills Inc., said modern municipalities have a need for the service: “There are increasing demands on local government, so if you go through four months without leadership in a department, the city or the county, it really puts you behind the eight ball.”

Last year Holmes worked as interim city manager for Lawndale and had a quiet tenure, she and city officials agree. In June, still eager to work, she accepted the interim South Pasadena post.

“There’s hardly anything that can happen in a city that I haven’t gone through--until now,” she added with a chuckle.

The Police Department has been rocked by two claims against the city--the first from a 27-year-old woman who says she had sex with two on-duty officers and was given access to the department’s gym and firing range. She later fired a gun in the police station.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday also alleges that officers covered up a hit-and-run crash involving a car driven by a police officer--who happens to be the son-in-law of a former mayor. Police Chief Thomas Mahoney is on voluntary, indefinite paid leave while private investigators probe his department.

The City Council took the unusual step of publicly backing Holmes when announcing the private investigation. Most are effusive in their praise, even if some sound notes of caution.

“She is cleaning up the dirt and dust,” Councilman Paul Zee said. “Because she is interim city manager she doesn’t have to worry about political concerns, but I am concerned if we have too many changes it will affect the continuity of our management.”

Although she says she is always tempted to return full time to the work she loves, Holmes says she still plans to leave her $8,750-a-month post by December.

“I think an interim position certainly does allow you more freedom. You’re equally as honest [as in a permanent position], but you can walk away from it.”

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Profile: Linda L. Holmes

Interim city manager

South Pasadena

* Age: 52

* Residence: West Covina

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal Poly Pomona

* Career highlights: Lawndale interim city manager, June 1995 to January 1996; Walnut city manager, September 1985 to June 1995; Walnut assistant manager, April 1985 to September 1985; administrative assistant to Buena Park city manager, September 1981 to April 1985

* Interests: Reading and traveling with her husband.

* Quote: “There’s hardly anything that can happen in a city that I haven’t gone through--until now.”