School Plan Signals Trouble in Small Town

By STEPHANIE CHAVEZ

June 11, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

There’s a favorite little form of hazing in Sierra Madre. Ask a local for a phone number, and they recite only the last four digits. “Oh, sorry, we only have four numbers in Sierra Madre,” they like to say.

Insiders know the prefix is 355. Outsiders have to ask. There’s a newer prefix--836--but if you have it, you’re new in town.

The residents of Sierra Madre, snuggled against the San Gabriel Mountains between Pasadena and Arcadia, go to great lengths to define themselves as small-town people. That’s why the roiling, two-year debate over whether to allow a Christian high school to build a campus high up on the mountainside is such a revealing look into this 3.06-square-mile city.

It shows that in Los Angeles County, with its 88 cities, 10 million residents and 4,000 square miles of urban sprawl, a modern-day Mayberry is stubbornly thriving, even in the midst of a town feud.

Perhaps the most enduring symbol in the city--one that could be threatened by a new high school--is, oddly enough, what is not on the streets: A traffic signal. Sierra Madre has never had one, never wants one.

“And we’re darned proud of it,” said Pat Reed, 72, the former editor of a town newspaper.

The lack of a traffic signal is the one clear measure of where Sierra Madre stands as a town. Ground zero is the intersection of Sierra Madre Boulevard and Baldwin Avenue. This is the heart of a homey downtown with mom-and-pop shops, sidewalk dining, a bell tower and church steeple.

The intersection has a capacity of 15,000 vehicle trips a day. Come near or cross that threshold and a traffic signal would be required. If that happens, Sierra Madre, as some residents know it, would be ruined.

Currently, 11,000 to 12,000 trips a day pass through the intersection. Motorists have to drive slowly, stop, and, most of all, pay attention.

“It makes you look at the other drivers and be courteous,” said City Councilwoman Chris Miller-Fisher. The proposed Maranatha project would generate about 1,600 more trips a day through town. It’s up for debate how many of those trips would pass through the main intersection.

Maranatha, for you outsiders, is the name of the private high school that has been in town for 20 years, longer than a few City Council members.

Its name means “The Lord Cometh” in Greek. It’s a strict college-prep school. The 500 students spend as many class hours studying the Bible as math. Sexual abstinence is valued. The skirts on the girls’ uniforms can be no higher than 3 inches above the middle of the knee.

From a city-slicker perspective, Maranatha sounds like a decent neighbor. Courteous, college-bound kids, no loud music, community service requirements.

But this is Sierra Madre, where civic activism for some is a favored pastime, for others, a competitive sport. “Every 18 to 24 months the town has a nervous breakdown over something,” said Councilman Bart Doyle.

A few years ago it was the campaign to stop construction of a drive-thru bagel shop. “No Drive-thru in Sierra Madre,” was the successful battle cry.

Recently, the town made front-page headlines when Sierra Madre preservationists won a California Supreme Court case prohibiting the city from removing 29 homes from a list of historic properties.

Concerned residents watch televised City Council meetings at home and then rush to council chambers to follow up on the last comment. Every day at noon a horn blasts through downtown, a reminder that this is a city with the only volunteer fire department in Los Angeles County.

Bean Town, the locally owned coffee house, is loved. Starbucks, the chain of $3 grande lattes, is reluctantly accepted. Domino’s Pizza is as inevitable as a gas station. Village Pizzeria, owned by longtime resident Tammy Brock, is the pride of town square.

“Basically, if you go to Starbucks and Domino’s, you are one type of person. If you go to Village Pizza and Bean Town you support the town,” explained City Councilman Doug Hayes, with a truth-in-humor edge in his tone.

What kind of person goes to the Sierra Madre Starbucks?

“People who are new in town,” Hayes said.

The Maranatha proposal is causing a divide because the new location it wants to build on would forever change a large and important piece of land. The number of students would grow from 500 to 650. It would mean a new school building, amphitheater, baseball field and gymnasium on land that is all but a nature preserve, complete with roaming mule deer.

Residents on both sides of the issue have emblazoned slogans on hundreds of lawn signs. They’re color-coded for easy reference: “Conservation, Not Construction” in black. “We Support Maranatha” in red.

“The people who oppose this development are doing so with one overriding motivation: the love of this city and to protect the dramatic dismantling of those things we consider most sacred to us,” said longtime resident Forrest Harding, a college business professor with a “Conservation” sign.

Patricia Rigdon, a family law attorney, sports a Maranatha sign. “The reason I live here is because of the yesteryear feel, the sense of community and safety you can’t find in Southern California anymore. I don’t think putting a school on the hill is going to affect any of that.”

As Councilman Doyle said, “The only consensus in town is that this is a great place and we don’t want to change it.”

In their quest to preserve, the townsfolk bring to bear the full force and sophistication of their big-city professions. This is an expensive place to live in, with year 2000 median home prices at $368,000, far above the county median of $205,000.

Mayberry 2001, it turns out, is populated with lots of affluent attorneys, scientists, educators and entertainment industry executives.

Both sides are mobilizing with e-mail rosters and mailing lists, steering committees, subcommittees and night workshops.

Doyle makes a subtle, but perhaps significant observation about Maranatha supporters.

“Schools and churches generate a huge network of personal connections in communities,” he said, adding that many are part of the strong “evangelical, fundamentalist component of this community.”

The proposed school site was home to the city founding father, Nathaniel Carter. His old white barn is still there.

The property was sold to the Willis family in 1939. Cornelius G. Willis was a respected oilman and geologist. His wife, Mindy Willis, was the niece of Herbert Hoover and an avid nature photographer. After Mindy died, eldest son Ted Willis became the executor of the estate and had to sell the property. He said he wanted to sell to a family that would preserve the land, priced at $4.3 million. No buyers.

When some buyers did appear, Willis said, a bidding war broke out, hiking the price to more than $6 million. One wanted to build a retirement home. Another thought the sweeping vistas made it a lovely place for a cemetery. The deals all fell through.

Then Maranatha High School, which has been leasing space in a nearby Pasadena Unified School District elementary campus, got word that the district wanted their campus back. The Willis land at the top of Baldwin Avenue seemed like the perfect choice for a new school.

“We love this community, and our identity is tied to this small town and its values,” said Maranatha Principal John Rouse.

Ted Willis was thrilled. Maranatha bought the land even though it does not have city approval to build on it.

As the uproar grew, Maranatha officials reduced the size of the campus, and agreed to leave most of the land in its natural state and to open it to the public.

Supporter Eric Olson, of the city’s mountain conservancy group, said the plan offers “an opportunity to preserve a part of our cultural heritage.”

But Judy Webb-Martin, a real estate agent, called the school a “totally inappropriate use of the land.”

The City Council is to vote on the issue in August.

Of course, other councils have been tested in the town’s 94-year history. Just ask Charlie Corp, 83, who was on the council from 1978 to 1986. Experience tells him that Sierra Madre will never abandon its small-town identity. When asked to described the Sierra Madre he moved to in 1960s, he reflected a moment.

“It was pretty much as it is today.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SIERRA MADRE

Size: 3.06 square miles

Population: 10,578

Location: 17 miles northeast of

downtown Los Angeles

Registered voters: 7,865

2000 median home price: $368,000

City motto: The Village of the Foothills

Home of: The only volunteer fire department in Los Angeles County. A wisteria vine said to be the largest flowering plant in the world.

Ethnic/racial breakdown