Legacy of Fallen Mayor Reverberates in Industry’s Name

The city of Industry was hardly that when John Ferrero became the first mayor. The town with the odd name began as little more than a stretch of scrawny San Gabriel Valley farmland.

But by the time the man believed to be the country’s longest continuously serving mayor died Thursday after a nearly four-decade reign, the city under his leadership had become nothing short of a paradise for business, a place that reflects its name.

The 84-year-old rancher, who ran unopposed since the city incorporated in 1957, finally yielded his office after suffering heart failure at West Covina’s Queen of the Valley Hospital, city officials said. The tough as old boots mayor, who a decade ago survived a car crash with a high-speed train, was admitted to the hospital this week because of fluid in his lungs.

Born amid the rolling farmland meadows the year the Titanic sank, Ferrero--unlike his thriving city--changed little over the years from the man who

loved the range. He remained strictly a Wranglers and plaid shirt guy, say colleagues who were greatly saddened by his passing.

“John was a man who believed that a handshake was as good as a contract. He was a man of his word, honest and dedicated,” said Chris R. Rope, Industry city manager. “He loved the ranch and loved this city.”

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Under Ferrero’s leadership, the sparsely populated city with more livestock than people became a community devoted to commerce, often amid controversy that led to a federal probe and convictions in the 1980s.

Although the city remains home to only 580 residents, the population jumps daily as some 65,000 people come to toil in its businesses.

“He was the leading force that held the city together,” Rope said. “He was continuity that kept everything going in an industrial mode. There was a lot of pressure to build houses, but he never backed off.”

The city, which occupies a two-mile-wide, 14-mile-long strip along the Pomona Freeway, now has a lucrative tax base with more than 2,000 businesses.

In the city with only one thing in mind, officials say, Ferrero’s greatest triumphs are the Industry Hills

development and the Workman and Temple Homestead Museum.

“It’s very sad, he was quite a guy. He is entitled to take most of the credit for things that have been achieved here,” said Graham Ritchie, city attorney and a friend of Ferrero’s for more than three decades.

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The creation of the business magnet using redevelopment funds was not without its problems or the envy of surrounding municipalities.

Since the 1970s, its redevelopment agencies have become among the biggest in the state.

In the early 1980s, one of the biggest corruption scandals in California history focused on another of the city’s founders, James Marty Stafford. Six men were indicted on a Stafford-orchestrated kickback and bid-rigging scheme that centered on the construction of the 660-acre, $65-million Industry Hills and Sheraton Resort. In 1984, they all pleaded guilty to various criminal charges and agreed to pay $4.5 million in fines. Stafford spent three years in federal prison.

Neither Ferrero nor other city officials were ever charged, but the city retained lawyers for the mayor because of the joint U.S. attorney-FBI investigation. In addition, in 1985 a grand jury report on Industry noted that more than 600 acres of land was being leased to the mayor at no cost by one of the city’s redevelopment agencies, but officials later said the deal was above-board.

Government in Industry is a family affair--among the council members who could succeed Ferrero as mayor is his son, Councilman John P. Ferrero.

The mayor is survived by his wife, Jennie, his son John Paul, his daughter Carolyn Nixon, three grandchildren, and sisters Mary Tuttle and Phyllis Tucker, city treasurer.

A funeral for Ferrero will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Joseph’s Church in nearby La Puente.