Citizens of Year Who Know Springer!

Port Hueneme City Councilman Murray Rosenbluth and his wife Adele have been named Citizens of the Year, but--let’s be clear here--nothing more and nothing less.

They are not: Citizens of the Year Who Cross-Dress with their Children’s Teachers!, or Citizens of the Year Who Combine Philanthropy with Exotic Dancing!, or Citizens of the Year Who Are In Love With Their Ex-Spouses’ Ex-Spouses!

Murray and Adele Rosenbluth are decidedly none of the above, and in their entire lives they have never thought of smashing each other or anyone else with a folding chair.

They are decent, honorable, hard-working, highly respected, Chamber of Commerce-designated Citizens of the Year, and their friendship with Jerry Springer is well behind them. At any rate, that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

At 67, Rosenbluth is a genial gent, a retired engineer who has thrown himself into civic affairs.

He’s the city’s mayor pro tem--which means he might stand in for the mayor at ribbon-cuttings, although the title sounds weighty enough to merit a black bag stuffed with zoning ordinances and nuclear codes. He volunteers for youth activities and serves on numerous local committees. He and Adele are also crusading to revive the comatose Ray D. Prueter Public Library, where the budget for books is something less than you might spend on monthly payments for a used Chevy Nova.

But all this comes decades after their involvement in the turbulent politics of Cincinnati, where they linked arms at the barricades with an engaging young fellow Democrat named Springer.

“We go way back with Jerry,” Rosenbluth acknowledged the other night.

Springer was a freshly minted lawyer working for a downtown Cincinnati firm. Evenings and weekends, he poured himself into a campaign to lower the state’s voting age from 21 to 19--an issue that also drew the Rosenbluths.

Rosenbluth doesn’t recall the outcome--a point that hardly matters in light of the subsequent federal law lowering the age to 18. But he does remember the meetings and the canvassing and the friendship of comrades-in-arms.

From time to time, the Springers and the Rosenbluths would get together. Rosenbluth would speak of his job as an engineering manager at Procter & Gamble Co. Springer would speak--not of Trombone Instructors Who Sleep With Their Students!--but of municipal politics.

As a liberal reformer, he campaigned successfully for a spot on Cincinnati’s City Council. His fortunes fell when a prostitute in Kentucky claimed he had paid for her services--and, incredibly, proved it by producing his personal check. But this is America: In 1977, a chastened Springer--Men Who Have Changed Their Ways!--was elected mayor.

“He pulled a Clinton and apologized,” Rosenbluth said.

Like a rare orchid--Bisexual Flowers That Do It With Their In-Laws!--the Springer-Rosenbluth liaison bloomed, then faded.

Early in his career, Springer had served an active-duty stint in the Army reserves at Fort Knox. The day he was released, he was standing in a base roadway with his duffel bag and guitar. At that moment, Adele and her daughter’s Girl Scout troop were ending their field trip to the base and boarding a bus back to Cincinnati.

“Jerry climbed on and serenaded them all the way back,” Rosenbluth recalled.

But not much later, the music ended. As Springer climbed the political ladder and Murray Rosenbluth was transferred to spots as diverse as Brussels and Ventura County, they lost touch.

“We wrote him when I was running for City Council,” Rosenbluth said. “I’d run across a photo of him and me working on campaign issues. I sent it to him and asked whether he would come out to help me with my campaign.”

There was no response.

It wasn’t a big disappointment.

Rosenbluth is a lot more interested in his current campaign--the resurrection of the library--than his past brush with glory.

Every bit the engineer, he reels off the library’s dismal specs: “At the beginning of the decade, it was open 55 hours a week. Now it’s open 29. At the beginning of the decade, the annual book budget was $40,000. Now it’s $3,000. The reference desk is closed. Full-time employees went from 10 to 2.”

But “citizens’ teams” are being formed and the Rosenbluths are in the thick of them. Solutions are being discussed. Money will be raised. The library will not be stranded, Rosenbluth vows; Port Hueneme will read again.

Men Who Love Books as Much as Politics!

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.