Pasadena worries about reputation as voting rights case drags on
On the surface, at least, Pasadena’s City Hall was a happy place Tuesday evening as elected officials, city employees and residents filed in for a City Council meeting. Handshakes, hugs and small talk created a glow of bonhomie as everyone waited for the show to start.
Yet a shadow hung over this sunny facade. These are troubled days for Harris County’s secondlargest city as it absorbs the effects of ongoing voting rights litigation and prepares for a municipal election in May amid continued uncertainty about what the electoral map will look like.
A blistering opinion by a federal judge, after a trial that drew national attention, depicted Pasadena as a place where public officials used taxpayerfunded time and resources in a relentless campaign to weaken Latino political influence; where Anglos enjoy superior public services; where residents referred to a Latino candidate seeking their votes as a “wetback”; and where another candidate felt obliged to conceal his Hispanic ethnicity to get elected.
Mayor Johnny Isbell’s determination to change the council structure by creating two citywide positions led to a spectacle that damaged Pasadena’s reputation, said Robbie Lowe, a real estate agent who has lived in the industrial Houston suburb since 1982.
“I’m embarrassed that you managed to bring an ugly part of our history back to the forefront,” Lowe told Isbell during the public speakers’ portion of the council meeting. “You pushed through your redistricting plan with the help of your trusty yes-men.”
Isbell, 78, whose most recent stint as mayor began in 2008, cannot run for re-election because of term limits. Four candidates filed to replace him on Wednesday, when registration began.
The mayor represents the whole city, of course, but those vying for a position on the eightmember City Council face
continued uncertainty as they await a decision on the city’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s order.
Rosenthal said the city must return to a system of eight single-member districts rather than the structure of six districts and two citywide positions created in a 2013 referendum. Rosenthal found the 6-2 system discriminatory, but the city disagrees and wants to use it this year.
“I’m sitting here and I don’t know what district I’m in,” said Larry Peacock, a longtime Pasadena resident who plans to run for a council seat but is waiting for clarity about the map before he files.
Beyond this uncertainty, Peacock said he shares Lowe’s concerns about the image of Pasadena projected by the voting rights case. Revelations about employees’ campaign activities on city time are particularly alarming, he said.
“My concern is, Pasadena has always had this image of criminal activity,” said Peacock, recalling a scandal in the 1960s involving public officials’ theft of city funds.
Cristina Womack, the president and CEO of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, said publicity about the trial has not hurt the chamber, which focuses on supporting existing businesses. But Paul Davis, who heads the city’s economic development office, said negative publicity “always has an impact. Always.”
Several members of the City Council have their own concerns. Trial testimony indicated that community relations director Richard Scott, who retired last week, was just one of several city employees involved in the use of city time, email accounts and other resources to campaign for the charter change that led to the new council system.
The scope of this unlawful activity, and the suggestion of a City Hall culture where it was tolerated or even encouraged by supervisors, can hardly be beneficial to Pasadena’s reputation.
Council members, however, have been frustrated in their efforts to initiate an internal investigation. And it’s not known whether any of the employees named in court testimony are the targets of a criminal inquiry (the district attorney’s office doesn’t confirm or deny investigations).
Isbell must believe that the purported merits of the 6-2 council system — he says it provides better representation — justify his decision to prolong a divisive legal struggle that has laid bare some unsavory aspects of his city’s history and culture. But as he prepares to exit the stage, he might consider that someone else will have to govern amid the bitter aftermath of this ugly episode.