May 28, 2004

A Hands-On Mayor
By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter

     Tirty days into his term, Carson’s new mayor was still clearing ex-mayor Daryl Sweeney’s items out of the mayor’s office. Amidst all the house cleaning, it appears that the new mayor is making it a top priority to clear out Sweeney’s economic agenda from city business as well. 
Dear hopes to reverse the trend of residents spending their money outside of Carson. “That’s one of our economic problems,” he said. “Not only do we go outside but people [from outside of Carson] don’t come here much. There are a few locations that bring in some people. Seafood City, a specialty Filipino market, brings people in from outside of Carson [as does] Diana’s restaurant, M & M Soul Food. We need to have that as a general situation.”
     Upon taking office, Mayor Jim Dear quickly began working on a multitude of projects ranging from a scholarship program for local students to launching an ambitious economic development strategy. Dear and his staff, along with council members began forwarding each other a mix of new and existing proposals and plans. Dear wants to bring to Carson upscale restaurants, a movie theatre, and a super clothing store that would allow Carson residents to buy high-end clothes at reasonable prices.
     Voters swept Dear into office in March in the aftermath of an extortion scandal that brought down Sweeney and two council members. Sweeney’s plans to bring in restaurants and other businesses did not produce results, except for the controversial Home Depot Center sports complex.
     Dear is now overseeing plans to revitalize the downtown and Carson’s South Bay Pavilion. The whole south wing of the shopping center, between the Ikea and J.C. Penny’s, is being torn down to make room for Target and L.A. Fitness. All of this is being done in an effort to attract major restaurant chains, and ultimately revitalize and re-tenant the nearly vacant shopping mall.
“Mayor Sweeney’s restaurant task force basically didn’t produce any restaurants,” Dear remarked. “Let me give you an example. Red Lobster, we tried to lure them to Carson. What it came down to was that Red Lobster was not interested in building in Carson because Carson residents already patronized their Torrance and Lakewood locations. They don’t see the logic of taking patrons out of Lakewood and Torrance. My solution to that — you find out who’s the primary competitor of Red Lobster and you entice that business here.” According to Carson’s Economic Development General Manager, Ron Winkler, three chains are tentatively considering opening a location at the mall-Chili’s, the Elephant Bar, and the Cheesecake Bistro. 
     Attracting major restaurant chains is part of a much larger plan to remodel, revitalize and re-tenant the mall. Dear said the new Target fits with the goal of drawing people from outside of Carson. Winkler said Target apparently didn’t feel locating a new Target off the 405 would cannibalize customers from the Target in Carson, off the Harbor Freeway. Target also has two other stores off the 405 in Long Beach. 
     Sweeney’s plans to attract restaurants failed with a local small business as well. The Villagio, part of a larger mixed-use real estate venture, quickly went out of business. “You know why, don’t you?” Dear asked. “The prices were too high. They were counting on the residents being their customers. The residents are low-income families. Even the Quizno’s [in the same complex] is too high-priced.” 
     The Villagio restaurant was replaced by Back Home in Lahaina, which seems to be a better match for the location. Dear feels the best way for the city to support family restaurants and other small businesses is to bring about more general prosperity. “The best thing we can do for those small businesses is to increase the number of customers who pass by their stores. That’s the goal of the Target project at the mall. The consequence of that, of course, it that there’s going to be more traffic. But if you want more prosperity, you’ve got to have more traffic. It’s like in San Pedro, the more prosperous Gaffey Street, the more traffic on Gaffey Street.” 
     To those who’d prefer less traffic, he responded, “Some people like the idea of Carson being a bedroom community and not much going on. They might be unhappy with the economic development. But I think the majority of people in Carson would be happy.” 
     As another part of the plan to attract new business to Carson, Dear supports an ambitious effort to build market-rate housing along the Carson Street corridor, in order to stimulate overall revitalization of Carson’s downtown. “That will change the economic demographics,” he asserted. “For businesses to survive in a new shopping center, there’s got to be homes nearby, especially if we want to make it pedestrian-friendly. [We’ve got to] have people adjacent to the [new] retail stores, so we’ve got to build some higher-density housing along Carson Street.” 
     Dear denied that building market-rate housing would interfere with the affordable housing supply, since he intends to increase both. “We intend to build affordable housing in Carson, but on Carson Street we want to bring in market-rate housing,” he said. 
     Even for higher-priced housing, Dear argued, “If you increase the housing stock, you don’t cause a problem for people buying homes. If you increase the housing stock, the demand is here. The supply is not here, the demand is here. That’s why prices are so high. If you increase the supply, then that brings prices down.” 
     At the same time, Dear said he will strongly defend the rights of mobile home parks and their tenants as a continued source of affordable housing, even along the Carson Street corridor. He is not in favor of eminent domain against mobile parks, he continues to support rent control for mobile home park tenants, and he supports efforts for tenants to own the parks they live in. 
     Dear’s plans for Carson leave some aspects of community life in limbo. For example, he has offered no plans for new medical facilities. Likewise, Dear talks about putting in a movie theater, but Winkler said the most likely site for one is the local former toxic waste dump. That’s about where another movie theater practically crashed and burned, literally, in the Eighties. 
     Economic development is not the mayor’s only job. Other City Hall business the new mayor is attending to ranges from a new labor contract to improving schools. The ethics task force still has work to do. The city now has a code of ethics after a stormy council meeting on May 4, but the proposed lobbyists’ ordinance still languishes. 
     Dear considers his role in the finalization of a new labor contract for city employees to be one of his better recent accomplishments. The City Council voted to raise employees’ pay to the 62 percentile in comparison with other local cities. Dear explained, “We were trying to bring everyone up to the 50 percentile.” Because there was no COLA (cost of living allowance) increase, Dear pushed for a bigger raise for employees. 
     “It’s compromised at 62 per cent,” he explained. “If we put it at 50 per cent, then as other cities give pay raises, our employees would drop below.” There are still a few individual employees contesting the composition survey for their positions, but the remaining procedures are to be completed by the start of the new fiscal year, June 30. 
     While Dear guides Carson into the next year, he also continues to work as a teacher and take on projects devoted to local education. In the mayor’s office, he got out a map and showed a visitor where the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is considering seven Carson sites for a new high school to relieve overcrowding in Banning, Carson, and Narbonne high schools. He said the LAUSD has already committed to building an $80 million high school in the next five to eight years. 
     As for his efforts in raising money for education, including scholarships, football rings, and coordinating with Cormier Chevrolet to provide new crossing-guard equipment, he explained, “I’m a hands-on mayor.” 
     He’s also aware his opponents would like to use any opening to get their hands on the mayor’s office next election. The latest salvo in Carson’s political wars: Mike Mitoma, a former mayor, went on cable TV recently to criticize what he regarded as too many personal expenses for Dear during the swearing in ceremony. 
     “Get the facts straight,” Dear retorted. “[Mitoma’s] claiming I have to report [the ceremonial table centerpieces] on my campaign finance reports. They were donated to the city of Carson by a local florist for an official city of Carson ceremony. The things that were presented, everything was under $50 in value. It doesn’t have to be reported. Why throw a wet blanket on a nice positive event? I would like to change Carson to a community where in order to make yourself look better, you do good things.”
     As he looked over block grant figures, addressed a planning commission matter, and looked over one local resident’s letter requesting that some weeds be trimmed, Mayor Dear talked to a reporter in the council chambers. If that wasn’t enough demanding his attention, there were still a fistful of phone messages he had to return.

To Read the entire Story, please pick up a FREE copy of Random Lengths