Retiring Mayor Seeks Calm After Storm of City Council Politics

His supporters call him the calm center of the City Council, more prone to lead with a softly voiced question than with a hard-line stance. Even his opponents describe him as a skilled politician who has brought a quiet order to a city government that, before his tenure, had a history of political brawls.

After six years as Moorpark’s first elected mayor, Paul Lawrason has reached what he says is the end of his career in elected office.

On Dec. 4, Lawrason, 68, will pass the gavel to Councilman Patrick Hunter and step into retirement. In January, Lawrason and his wife, Connie--who often attended council meetings cradling the couple’s small dog, Linc, in a blue apron--will move out of Moorpark, settling into a new home in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

He will leave both admirers and critics. Colleagues, including some of his former political adversaries, said they will miss Lawrason’s willingness to listen and forge compromises. Opponents who have blasted Lawrason for what they consider his pro-development attitude say they welcome his departure.

For his part, Lawrason is convinced the timing of his retirement is right, especially after his latest round of heart surgery. And yet he dreads his final council meeting.

“That’s going to be hard,” he said. “I’m already getting pangs, thinking that this is all coming to a close.”

When Lawrason won election to the council in 1988, Moorpark’s government had existed for just five tumultuous years. One councilman, Danny Woolard, had been convicted the previous year of embezzling $5,500 from his employer, the post office. Another, the late Thomas C. “Bud” Ferguson, was accused of making improper loans to Woolard and yanked out of office by a recall vote.

During one infamous 1988 council meeting, three different mayors presided over Moorpark in quick succession.

“Those were the days when people used to spell Moorpark backward and take great delight in it,” Lawrason said. “You had fights and recalls. It was rough-and-tumble. It was embarrassing.”

Lawrason, a Detroit native who moved to California in 1953, was a new arrival in Moorpark when he first dove into local politics. The Lawrasons had moved from Thousand Oaks in 1985, seeking a larger house. Two years later, he joined the city’s Planning Commission, nominated by then-Councilman John Lane, on whose election campaign Lawrason had served.

After losing a special election to fill a short-term vacancy on the council, Lawrason won a seat in November 1988. During its early years, the City Council appointed the mayor, but in 1988, residents voted to abolish that system. The first mayoral election was scheduled for 1990.

Lawrason first reached the mayor’s chair through the old system. By a 3-2 vote, he was appointed mayor over Councilman Bernardo Perez during a rancorous 1989 council session. In the following year’s election, he beat Councilman Clint Harper to retain the seat.

As one of his initial goals, Lawrason said he wanted to improve the atmosphere on the dais and take some of the vitriol out of council discussions.

Perez had backed Harper in the election and wondered if there would be friction with Lawrason.

“There could have been some real possibility of difficulty in working together,” he said. “But that wasn’t the case. That’s not to say we didn’t have our differences, but . . . it was business as usual.”

Councilman John Wozniak said he often disagreed with the mayor on development issues, with Wozniak favoring slower growth. Although they found themselves on different sides of such projects as the 612-home Bollinger development in northern Moorpark, Wozniak said Lawrason always listened to opposing arguments and worked to find a compromise.

“That’s what you’re there to do,” he said. “Nobody seems to understand what compromise means anymore, but that’s part of the purpose of a council.”

In council meetings, Lawrason is a quiet presence. He often asks for other council members to start discussions and listens with his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the back of the room. When the talk lags, he prods his colleagues with a quick question or comment. When Moorpark residents testifying before the panel seem nervous, he sometimes tries a quick joke to put them at ease.

As a result, most council meetings now have the business-like atmosphere Lawrason sought.

“He’s a consensus builder,” said Harper, who is now the chairman of Moorpark’s school board. “He’s got a quiet, smooth-running city.”

Still, his votes in favor of such housing projects as Bollinger, which includes two golf courses and the Carlsberg development, which will create 552 homes in the city’s southeastern corner, angered some in the community. Roseann Mikos, president of the Environmental Coalition’s Moorpark branch, said Lawrason gave a project’s developers more latitude to state their case than he gave to the project’s opponents.

“I think he was very sincere in trying to act on his vision of Moorpark--a Moorpark growing faster and bigger than I believe people in Moorpark want,” she said. “If you’re pro-development, he did a good job representing that side of the community. But a mayor has to represent all sides.”

Lawrason said he believes in managed growth, adding that so long as the city’s infrastructure--including its roads and schools--keeps pace with development, the city can retain much of its rural flavor.

Harper, who has remained a vocal critic of some development projects in town, also characterized Lawrason as a pro-growth vote on the council. Harper criticized the update of the city’s General Plan, approved under Lawrason’s leadership, that allows what Harper considers excessive housing densities in certain areas of town.

However, Harper has also worked with Lawrason on issues concerning the school board and the council. He credits Lawrason with trying to improve relations between the panels after years in which they often fought.

“We recently had a meeting on the question of who will fund the crossing guards, and he was very cordial and approachable, so I commend him for that,” Harper said. “He was always a very pleasant person to work with, even when we were screaming at each other.”

Although Lawrason’s health was not the only factor behind his decision to withdraw from politics, it did play a major part. He has undergone a series of operations, the most recent in October, to clear blocked arteries. The experience made him reconsider his priorities.

“That made me realize that life is pretty precious,” he said. “I’m now at a juncture in my life where I need to change my lifestyle, ease off a bit.”

On Dec. 20, Lawrason will retire from his job as a contract manager at Litton Systems Inc.’s guidance and control division in Northridge. In January, the Lawrasons will move to a house outside of Grass Valley, where several of his friends and former co-workers have already bought homes. Although he may join the local homeowner association, he said he will not run for elected office again. Instead, he may teach civics at a nearby college.

Lawrason said he was relieved to sit out the recent election season. And yet he has trouble pulling away from the town he has led for years. “I’m going to miss the people here most of all,” he said.