Pringle’s Style Wins Allies in Anaheim

The longtime City Hall worker stood in Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle’s office, soaking in her surroundings.

“I’ve never seen the mayor’s office before,” said the secretary, who works just a few floors down, in the city attorney’s office. “How nice. In small towns, a long time ago, they did things like this.”

But here in Anaheim, the German colony that grew into the state’s 10th-biggest city, nobody could recall a mayor’s reception for employees. He popped for cookies and coffee and invited every city employee to his top-floor digs so they could get to know him. And they came: department heads, firefighters, even the guy from the mailroom.

They chatted with one of the state’s savviest politicians, a former Assembly speaker and controversial conservative Republican who has made Anaheim his new political stage.

The open house was signature Pringle, taken straight from his Sacramento playbook when he used to host bimonthly pasta dinners for both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. It’s the kind of schmoozing that he employed during his four terms in Sacramento and that he is using to brand the first year of his term as mayor of Anaheim.

As he prepares to deliver his State of the City address today, Pringle, 44, finds himself in an arena more parochial than his old Sacramento haunts.

Already he has several successes -- soothing relations with a neighboring city, laying groundwork for a possible professional basketball team, and adopting a number of business-friendly ordinances.

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Access to Lawmakers

“I’m not surprised to see him do better at the local level than some would expect,” said Barbara Stone, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State Fullerton and a Republican Party activist. “He is pretty ideologically conservative but it doesn’t get in his way of dealing with people in the issues at hand.”

Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem Richard Chavez, a Democratic labor activist who has befriended Pringle, agreed. “What he’s done is build a relationship [with me] -- and that’s what he’s done with other people. He builds a relationship, finds that mutual ground and uses that common ground to resolve problems.”

And few mayors in California can boast his kind of access to critical lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, thanks to his connections with several key members of the governor’s staff. At one point mentioned as a possible chief of staff for Schwarzenegger, Pringle has lobbied the governor to protect cities’ allocation of vehicle license fees.

“There’s not a big-city mayor out there who can rival Curt Pringle in terms of getting things done in the state,” said lobbyist Darius Anderson, chief fundraiser for then-Gov. Gray Davis.

“He knows the process, he knows the players, and he is respected. You talk to some of the most prominent Democrats and they will tell you that Pringle is that kind of person.... He’s a Democrat’s dream to work with.”

After leaving the Assembly in 1998 because of term limits, Pringle ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer and kept a foot in Sacramento by launching his lobbying business there. Saying he missed public service -- and dismissing suggestions that he was positioning himself for a return to state politics -- Pringle used his name recognition and campaign war chest to be handily elected mayor in 2002, replacing Tom Daly.

The man who helped shape the state budget and who presided over the Assembly now heads a five-member City Council debating soccer fields and planning commission term limits.

Both locally and in Sacramento, Pringle is respected for his intelligence and his ability to strike political compromises that have helped him forge unlikely partnerships.

State Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno) said Pringle has worked to overcome a long-held reputation for being an unbending conservative.

“I don’t know of anyone that I’ve worked with who has as much stature in the Legislature and worked so effectively and pragmatically,” Poochigian said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Democratic assemblyman who was also speaker, said he met Pringle in 1994, a time in Sacramento of intense acrimony and “a lot of negative feelings.”

“Not at first, but over time, I think he mellowed,” Villaraigosa said. “I think he tried to be more bipartisan.”

The two ironed out their differences so much that when Villaraigosa ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2001, Pringle hosted a fundraiser for him.

On a recent trip to Sacramento, Pringle met with Schwarzenegger’s deputy chief of staff, hosted a get-together with top Republican leaders at his fashionable, new downtown loft office, and popped into Democratic Assembly speaker Herb Wesson’s office for a quick hello.

“Curt’s not a bad fella,” Wesson offered afterward. “He’s just got the wrong [political party] initial after his name.”

It’s a long way from his Garden Grove roots where he worked at his parents’ drapery shop and, in his 20s, ran unsuccessfully three times for City Council.

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A Lucky Political Break

The political unknown got his break in 1988 -- when the Republican incumbent in the 72nd Assembly district, Richard E. Longshore, died a day after his primary victory.

Pringle seized the opportunity and developed a strategy that would serve him well. He learned the importance of friendships.

While other candidates for Longshore’s seat pursued the more conventional tack of seeking newspaper endorsements and raising money, the 29-year-old Pringle quietly sold himself to members of the Orange County Republican Central Committee, who were responsible for finding a replacement candidate. He won their nomination, and the election. But not without controversy.

On election day, the county GOP posted uniformed guards at heavily Latino voting stations in Santa Ana. Republicans said they wanted to ensure that no illegal immigrants voted, but Democrats complained the guards’ presence scared off legitimate voters.

The incident dogged the up-and-coming Pringle. Democrats targeted him because he represented everything they disdained about Orange County and extremist Republican politics.

He couldn’t shake the poll-guard brouhaha, and lost his first reelection bid. He rebounded in 1992, more willing to cooperate with the other side.

With his growing legislative experience, Pringle was becoming “a deal-maker, as opposed to a hard ideologue,” said Anthony York, editor of Political Pulse, a Sacramento political newsletter.

He became Assembly speaker in 1996 after spending the winter holidays visiting every Republican member in his or her home district, securing their support. “He got their commitment, and he did it one by one,” said Jeff Flint, Pringle’s former chief of staff and longtime political advisor. “It was Curt boiling a complicated problem into a simple problem.”

While others say politics transformed Pringle, he takes a simpler view -- that he simply matured. “For years, I have been portrayed as a political animal, as a partisan animal,” Pringle said. More accurately, he said, he is driven by personal relationships.

When he works a room, he remembers faces he hasn’t seen in years and asks about their children by name. Those who have socialized with him say Pringle mesmerizes a room with his home-spun stories, dispenses dry-cleaning advice and once pruned rosebushes during a party at the house of state Sen. Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine).

When he arrived in Anaheim, Pringle charmed city staffers by pouring them coffee at one of his first meetings. Settling into his nonpartisan job, Pringle brought Anaheim back to the table of the state’s “Big 10,” a mayors’ group that caucuses monthly to discuss state issues.

He lobbied local millionaire Henry Samueli to take over management of the city-owned Arrowhead Pond. It’s a deal that continues to shield the city’s general fund and one Pringle hopes will pave the way for NBA basketball in Anaheim.

He mediated formerly contentious meetings with Yorba Linda officials to resolve a decadelong dispute over construction of a railroad sound wall, finally paving the way for construction to begin.

And he has encouraged the council to pass what he calls “freedom-friendly” ordinances that are intended to promote business, individual and property rights. Among them: decriminalizing violations of conditional-use permits and lifting a ban on motel stays longer than 30 days.

At today’s State of the City address, he will announce plans to spruce up residential neighborhoods and detail other strategies to strengthen the city’s economy.

It’s not the stuff of statewide politics, but Pringle still thrives on the challenge.

“I do love and value public service,” Pringle said. “I do think I have some skill in that. I guess I have this drive to be in charge, set a direction, get things done.... I see part of my role in Anaheim as bringing Anaheim into the limelight.” And Pringle, wiser for his Sacramento days, is still making friends. Among them: Councilman Chavez, who frequently votes with Pringle on the rare divisive issue.

“He’s a conservative Republican, and I’m a liberal Democrat,” Chavez said. “It’s been a real pleasant surprise. He’s open-minded and very intelligent.”

Pringle has hosted a fundraiser on behalf of the nonprofit Eli Home for abused children where Chavez works. Chavez said some of his supporters have questioned whether he is becoming too close to Pringle.

Of course, the two sometimes still disagree. Chavez was arrested Jan. 17 in front of Vons as part of a labor demonstration. Pringle was “not too thrilled about it,” but questioned the decision “the way a big brother would,” Chavez said.

Some critics say they resent the council majority that Pringle has forged because it has emboldened the mayor.

“He is not one vote, he’s three votes,” said Esther Wallace, chairwoman of the West Anaheim Neighborhood Development Council. “A lot of people are afraid to say things [critical of Pringle] because of the power he wields.”

Other Pringle critics worry that he will use his position to promote his private lobbying business, or to launch himself back into state office.

“I don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to mix lobbyists and politicians, and he’s both,” said downtown activist Keith Olesen. “That’s great news for his clients and for the political machine, but I don’t know that it helps the city of Anaheim any.”

Pringle said has dropped two major clients -- costing himself “a lot of money” -- because they might have posed a conflict with his role as mayor, and he has abstained on a few city votes.

Wylie Aitken, chairman of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County and an adversary dating to Pringle’s Assembly days, said Pringle’s connections could benefit the city, but only if he “scrupulously avoids” conflicts of interest.

So far, Aitken said he hasn’t seen Pringle’s leadership bring about any major changes: “The streets look the same. Same number of potholes.”

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Advancing His Vision

But those working closely with Pringle say he has spent the last year developing relationships and laying a political foundation to advance his vision.

“He’s skillful in developing policy direction from his council members, and he’s been very clear in communicating to the staff and to the public where he and the council are,” said City Manager David M. Morgan. “He wants to improve and take to a higher level virtually everything he comes in contact with.”

This spring, the city will unveil its general plan -- a plan to help cement Anaheim as the hub of Orange County.

On Tuesday, developers will break ground on a downtown project to build 500 residential units and 55,000 square feet of retail space.

“He has an impatience that is healthy,” said Pringle ally and Councilman Thomas Tait. “I think it takes an energy that he has to make things happen.”

So while others wonder what Pringle’s political future holds, he said he’s not looking much further than the city limits.

“The title means nothing to me anymore,” Pringle said. “All that matters is accomplishment. I think this is a great job.”