Former Mayor Tom Owings dies
A defender of the city, he would confront critics even after his 2014 ousting
Former Moreno Valley Mayor Tom Owings, known for his fierce defense of the city and brash behavior with critics before a recall election cut short his political career, has died.
Yxstian Gutierrez, Moreno Valley’s current mayor, confirmed Owings’ passing.
“Tom Owings was not only a friend but a strong and visionary leader,” Gutierrez said in a statement issued Monday. “As mayor, he helped lead the charge in balancing our budget after a recession, expanding after school programs and youth initiatives, cutting spending and bringing our faith communities together.”
Details of Owings’ death were not available. He had been living in the mountain community of Pinetop, Arizona, and worked as an expert witness in court cases involving auto dealerships, according to his website.
Owings’ passing follows the deaths this year of two Moreno Valley council members. Mayor Pro Tem Victoria Baca died in October while Council Member Carla Thornton died in January.
A former planning commissioner and car dealership executive, Owings brought an outspoken mindset to Riverside County’s second-largest city when he defeated Council Member Robin Hastings in 2012 and was appointed mayor in 2013.
Owings was known for using the council dais and his position as mayor to defend his city and clap back at those he saw as adversaries — including The Press-Enterprise — using terms like “whackos” and “smear merchants” to describe critics.
“I am not going to continue to let these people continue to lecture us every damn council meeting on how our city sucks without being challenged,” he said in 2013. “I’m tired of the personal attacks, the false allegations that make us the laughing stock of this county.”
During a June 2013 budget discussion with then-Council Member Richard Stewart, Owings said: “I apologize to you and the citizens of Moreno Valley for two faults that I have. One is I speak bluntly. No one needs to leave a room wondering what I think. And I do not suffer fools gladly.”
On Tuesday, Stewart, who nominated Owings for mayor, said Owings wanted to change the city’s government to a “strong mayor” system in which the mayor would have more power — a move Stewart opposed.
“Tom Owings may have made a very good strong mayor,” Stewart said. “But who knows who would have followed him?”
While Owings and Stewart often disagreed, “it was an intelligent disagreement,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t an animosity thing. He just had a different way of looking at how the city was going to be run.”
An Oregon native who served in the Army, Owings said in a 2013 interview that he got his bluntness from his father — “a plain spoken man. He was a truth teller and most people appreciated hearing the unvarnished truth.”
Michael Geller, Owings’ personal attorney and friend, said in 2013 that Owings reacted to “consummate complainers” with nothing to offer.
“Most council members would like to do what he’s doing but just don’t have the guts to do what he’s doing and take on these people who lie and make up things,” Geller said at the time.
Outside city hall, Owings was active in Moreno Valley Elks Lodge No. 2697, taking part in car shows and golf tournaments to raise money for scholarships, purchase dictionaries for school children and buy a lodge for the club, the lodge’s treasurer said in 2013.
“If it’s to benefit the children of our community, he’s always been one of the first ones to say, ‘What can I do to help?’” Phyllis Harris said at the time.
Like other Moreno Valley City Council members, Owings came under scrutiny for his relationship with developer Iddo Benzeevi, who contributed to Owings’ 2012 campaign and later spent six figures in an attempt to defeat Owings’ recall. Benzeevi plans to build the World Logistics Center, a 40.6 million-square-foot logistics complex — roughly the size of 705 football fields — on Moreno Valley’s eastern side.
At first, Owings defended the project, saying it would bring thousands of jobs.
In April 2013, a 14-yearold girl nervously approached the council to share concerns about the logistics center. Owings asked if she knew Benzeevi.
When she shook her head no, he said: “Then, honey, I would suggest you have your own thoughts and don’t allow yourself to be manipulated if you don’t know the man.”
Owings later had misgivings about the project, saying in 2015 that it was “too big and it is in the wrong place … I cannot see why it wasn’t broken up into smaller pieces.”
He was part of a group that filed a legal challenge against the project in 2015.
The council approved the project in 2015, more than a year after Owings was ousted from office. Eightyone percent of voters in an election with 14% turnout chose to remove him.
The recall followed an April 2013 FBI raid of Owings’ home and those of three other Moreno Valley council members, as well as Benzeevi’s office and that of another real estate broker, as part of what authorities called a political corruption investigation.
“It’s never nice to be woken up in the morning by the FBI,” Owings told reporters after the raid.
Owings, who boasted he had no need to retain an attorney because he was innocent, later showed up at U.S. District Court in Riverside demanding to testify before a federal grand jury that he said had been convened. After two years, the probe ended with no indictments. Owings believed the probe led to his recall.
“They painted me as Iddo’s boy and corrupt, and the proof of the corruption was the investigation,” he said in 2015.
In the first council meeting after the recall, Owings said he accepted “the consequences of staying true to my principles. I couldn’t do it any other way.”
Later in the meeting, resident and recall supporter Kathleen Dale said: “It’s a great day for Moreno Valley.”
“Next week I won’t be mayor,” Owings replied. “You’ll still wake up being a mean-spirited person.”