Santa Ana’s Departing Manager Predicts Racial Tensions : Bobb Leaves a Vision--and a Warning

From the window of his eighth-floor office in Santa Ana City Hall, Robert C. Bobb looks out on a city that he envisions will soon be “one of the wealthiest in Southern California.”

He sees a sports arena and a professional basketball team and a thriving economy fueled in part by an auto center and a brand new shopping mall. And rising from a downtown that once struggled under the weight of blood banks, flophouses and beer bars, Bobb sees a luxury hotel-office complex towering over a Latino-oriented shopping center and restored historic structures.

But Bobb also envisions a city alive with racial tension as immigrants from Asia and Central America swell the population. Keeping harmony among the city’s Anglos, blacks, Latinos and Indochinese will be one of the biggest challenges facing Santa Ana community leaders in the coming years, he says.

Bobb, 41, won’t be here to see his vision come to life. On July 11, he’ll end 29 controversial months as the manager of (if illegal aliens are counted) Orange County’s most highly populated city. Bobb, who came to Orange County from his post as the city manager of Kalamazoo, Mich., is leaving to become city manager of Richmond, Va.

Kalamazoo City Manager Scheryl Sculley, who was an assistant city manager under Bobb, said she couldn’t recall what Bobb was like when not working “because he worked all the time.” In Santa Ana, colleagues described him as “serious,” “dynamic,” “a workaholic” and “bullheaded.”

But most allowed that their boss also could display a sense of humor or loosen up when the situation warranted it. Paul Apodaca, curator of folk art at the Bowers Museum and a neighbor of Bobb, recalled that Bobb was relaxed enough at an employee gathering shortly after his arrival to jump on stage with a band made up of police officers and belt out his rendition of “Jambalaya.”

Love him or hate him, everyone had an opinion on Robert C. Bobb.

That was never a concern, said the county’s first black city manager. “I don’t expect everyone to like me. I don’t expect everyone to like every program I pitch. And I don’t expect everyone to want to socialize with me. It’s not a popularity contest,” he said.

Bobb’s tenure has been marked by frenetic development activity. Only Los Angeles and San Diego have more construction activity under way than Santa Ana. But Bobb said he is most proud of an expanded Police Department, a more “responsive” city government structure and programs that he said have helped lay the groundwork for aggressive development .

The move to put civilians to work as paramedics, which brought an outcry from firefighters and some members of the community, is also something he’s proud of. The old system, he said, meant that firefighters served as paramedics at the expense of time spent as firefighters.

He also cited Santa Ana’s building code enforcement program aimed at cleaning up dilapidated and overcrowded buildings, although both landlords and tenants have criticized aspects of that policy. And he noted that the city hasn’t been insensitive to people displaced when a building is shut down, because cash has been set aside to find displaced persons housing.

“We showed that we, as an urban city, are dealing with some tremendous issues, and that we have been unafraid to tackle those issues,” Bobb said. “It would have been so easy and so nice if we had ignored the Westdome (indoor arena) project or the paramedic issue . . . if we had ignored all those issues that are necessary to make an urban community advance and position itself for the future.”

Bobb said that Westdome is a vital project that should be pushed through as soon as the four developers behind it locate a suitable site in an industrial area. The City Council has already rejected two locations because of the opposition of residents to an arena as a neighbor.

The downtown site first proposed for the arena, Bobb said, would have been the best for the city because of its price and its effect on Santa Ana’s effort to bring about a renaissance in the county’s only real downtown area.

Vital Components

He envisioned a string of three major development projects--the arena, the Centerpointe project (a proposed luxury hotel-office complex), and the Fiesta Marketplace (a Latino-oriented shopping center)--as vital components for Santa Ana’s growth.

Although Bobb’s announcement that he would resign came just days before a citywide vote on a proposal to alter city government, the city manager stressed that unrest played no part in his decision. The proposal, put forth by a coalition of citizen groups opposed to various actions by city government, first called for a recall of all seven City Council members and the firing of Bobb.

“ ‘Recall Seven and Fire One?’ he said, recalling the group’s original slogan. “That had no impact on me whatsoever. As a professional, I’m not a wealthy person, but I’m not intimidated because some group wants to terminate me. I believe I have enough experience and skill that I can go out and get another job. If they thought they were intimidating me, they were absolutely whistling Dixie. . . . I come from the school of hard knocks. I’ve seen too much personal animosity growing up in Southern Louisiana and fighting through the system all my adult life. So I’m oblivious, literally, to all this garbage.”

The proposal to impose ward elections and have a directly elected mayor has been endorsed by Latino groups, who argue that by voting in wards they’ll be able to get fair representation on the council. While Bobb said he believes that they’re correct and that ward systems are inevitable for all U.S. cities with high minority populations, he said that the dissidents are going about it the wrong way.

“From a minority person’s perspective, I would not align myself with a radical group that wants to make all these radical changes in the city government’s structure,” he said. “And I have zero interest in how the mayor is elected. My primary interest should be ‘how many seats on the City Council are occupied by a minority person engaged in public policy decisions?’ . . . The minority groups involved in this--their agenda is all backwards from my perspective. They should be in there fighting with that charter review commission (a council-appointed citizens group looking at possible changes in the city charter) and looking at a structure of wards or a combination of wards or whatever that will bring more minority representation to the City Council.

“It will happen, it’s inevitable. And if it doesn’t happen through the ballot, it will happen through the federal courts.”

Bobb said the fact that he had not received a pay increase in about a year and had in fact become only the third-highest paid employee at City Hall (behind Assistant City Manager Rex Swanson and Police Chief Raymond C. Davis) bothered him but wasn’t a factor in his decision to move on. The move to Richmond, which includes not only more responsibility but also a $26,000 raise, is “strictly a career move,” he said.

Bobb’s relations with the City Council have for the most part been good, but there have been strains, including apparent irritation among some council members who felt that the city manager was getting too much media coverage. A council member once called The Times to say that he was “tired of seeing Bobb’s name in the paper.”

“I think that sometimes the council thought I was out front on some issues. . . . For City Council members, their payday is when their name and picture is in the paper on positive issues. My payday is when I pick up my paycheck every two weeks,” Bobb said. “There’s no way of escaping (getting his opinions into the media). The city manager’s here every day and doesn’t represent the views of the City Council. The city manager is the chief spokesperson for the city Administration.”

But many in Santa Ana agreed with Councilman John Acosta, who said Bobb “was just the ticket for this city. He left his mark on Santa Ana, and he’ll be remembered for a long time to come.”

Pressure From Community

Acosta said the council members’ selection of Economic Development Director David Ream as the new manager probably reflects the pressure that has been put on them from the community in the last year. “I think the council majority felt it was time for a more low-profile city manager, a local guy who knows the area well. . . . Dave Ream has been a behind-the-scenes role player in all of our programs.”

One city official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said racism may have played a part in some of the opposition to Bobb. “Part of the undue criticism was because he is a black man,” he said. “I think a lot of the inquiries the City Council received about him were made in hopes of finding something negative so they could say, ‘Well, why did you hire him?’ ”

Although he didn’t cite any specific instances, Apodaca, an American Indian, said racist sentiment was probably inevitable. “Whenever anyone makes a breakthrough like he did, there’s going to be a lot of pressure,” he said.

Bobb himself played down racism and said he hadn’t faced anything unexpected. “It’s inevitable. It’s here. I mean, sure,” he said. “But nobody’s come up to me and been very blatant about it. My son’s run into it in the neighborhood where he’s run into disparaging remarks from other kids and at least one adult that I know of. But it’s inevitable.”

The fact that Santa Ana, perhaps like no other Orange County city, fits the American image of a “melting pot” of different races is something future leaders cannot ignore, Bobb noted.

Sees Tension Mounting

“In Santa Ana, I believe the tension is mounting, particularly between the undocumented Hispanic coming across the border and the American Hispanic and also the Anglos,” he said. “I believe we need some kind of agenda for the community to try to relieve these pressure points because there is real pressure building. I think we need to convene a major discussion between the political leadership, religious and neighborhood leadership and start coming together because you can’t shy away from it. There is a problem out there.”

Although Bobb has spent a large amount of time at various civic functions and has been an accessible city manager, some critics say that he never really wanted to stay in Santa Ana. Said former Mayor Gordon Bricken: “Robert never, in my opinion, became part of the community. Although he worked very hard, he was always an outsider.”

Bobb vigorously denied that accusation and said that he would miss the city and Southern California. “I like Santa Ana,” he said. “I like the dynamics of the community in terms of what it can become.

“I’ve spent literally hours on the streets of this community. I believe I know Santa Ana extremely well. I live in Santa Ana. When I made the move here, I moved into the city. . . . I participate in Santa Ana’s community events. I have an investment in property. I’m as much a part of this community as anyone.”