New Pasadena mayor hopes to step out long shadow cast by Isbell
Don Harrison placed a hand on his mother’s Bible, inscribed to her children during World War II, to take the oath of office for a two-year term as a Pasadena City Council member on Saturday. Another newly elected councilman, Thomas Schoenbein, sobbed as he recalled his father’s death in January.
On the surface, a swearing-in ceremony is all about family and friends, tradition and ritual. But politics often slips in and finds a seat at the back of the room.
At Pasadena City Hall on Saturday, Mayor Jeff Wagner, council members and their backers and critics quietly forged alliances and mapped strategy in between shaking hands, kissing cheeks and playfully hoisting little children. You could see it in the whispered consultations between Wagner and his aides; you could hear it in the murmurs from people in the audience grousing about the salaries of some new city officials.
The results of this low-key plotting and scheming will begin to be apparent on Wednesday, when Wagner and the new council — a mix of veterans and newcomers — gather for their first meeting. They’ll have a lot to talk about.
Wagner, a 53-year-old retired Houston police officer, succeeds Johnny Isbell, 78, a dominant figure in Pasadena politics for 40 years. Even Isbell’s harshest critics would agree that no one has left a greater mark on the culture and civic life of Harris County’s second-largest city.
Replacing a legend is never easy. It’s clear, though, that as Wagner begins a four-year term, he’s determined to step out of the long shadow cast by his predecessor. His campaign pushed back against efforts by his runoff opponent, John Moon Jr., to portray Wagner as a proxy for Isbell, and the new mayor’s aides are tired of seeing news reports (including this column) describing Wagner as an “Isbell ally.”
There is some evidence to justify that label: Although Isbell did not endorse any of the seven candidates who sought to succeed him, his son, J.J. Isbell, contributed $2,500 to Wagner’s campaign. And Wagner, as a councilman, was part of a group that consistently sided with Isbell on disputed issues, enabling
the mayor to break a 4-4 tie.
But this doesn’t mean Isbell and Wagner are joined at the hip, or that Wagner will necessarily govern in the same manner as his predecessor. Pasadena, like Houston, has a strong-mayor form of government, and Isbell used every ounce of authority the city charter gave him — and then some, perhaps. He had little patience for dissent.
Wagner deserves a chance to succeed or fail without the burden of Isbell’s baggage, and some of the former mayor’s opponents are encouraged by what Wagner is showing them so far. They’re pleased, for example, by his appointments of Latinos to two key positions: former Houston Councilman James Rodriguez as the mayor’s chief of staff, and Pasadena police veteran Lt. Al Espinoza as police chief.
“I’m optimistic,” said Cody Ray Wheeler, one of three Latinos on the council.
The biggest test facing Wagner was represented by the protesters who stood on the steps of City Hall prior to the swearingin ceremony, holding signs opposing a new state law intended to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities. It’s just one of many issues of concern to Pasadena’s Latinos, who make up twothirds of its population.
If Wagner’s aides are doing their jobs well, they’re advising their boss to engage with the Latino community more successfully than Isbell did. Appointments can have important symbolic value, but Wagner will have to follow up by improving basic services like streets and drainage in the mostly Latino neighborhoods on the city’s older north side.
“Beginning today, as soon as they take office, we will be watching them, and we will be holding them accountable,” activist Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL Houston, told my colleague Katherine Blunt outside the swearing-in event.
One of the things Latino leaders will be watching is whether the city continues its appeal of an order by a federal judge who found that the creation of two at-large council positions intentionally weakened the influence of Latino voters. U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal ordered the city to use the old system of eight single-member district positions for this year’s election.
Some mayoral candidates vowed to drop the appeal, which already has cost the city more than $2 million in legal fees. Wagner has said he would ask the council for guidance on the decision; it’s unclear when that will happen.
If Pasadena continues its appeal and prevails, future elections will follow a system of six district and two at-large positions that will make it harder for Latino voices to grow stronger.
Some of Wagner’s constituents, of course, would be just fine with that outcome. The mayor will have to decide whether to listen to them or to the people represented by the protesters he passed on his way into City Hall on Saturday. It amounts to a choice between the past and the future.