Jue Saluted on Leaving Hawthorne’s Top Job

If it had been left up to Hawthorne City Manager R. Kenneth Jue, he would have walked out of City Hall quietly when he retires Monday, spiriting away nearly a quarter-century of memories in a few boxes.

But the self-effacing Jue wasn’t allowed to slip away without a fitting tribute. At a banquet Thursday at the Cockatoo Inn, nearly 300 co-workers and friends honored the man who has run the city for the past 14 years.

Jue, 58, grew up in Hawthorne and never strayed farther than Inglewood throughout his career. He came back to Hawthorne as director of public works in 1967 and was promoted to city manager 10 years later.

At the fete Thursday, Jue was showered with proclamations, embarrassed by a belly dancer and celebrated with a heartfelt rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Speakers attributed his longevity in a notoriously unstable line of work to his lightheartedness and apparent lack of ego.

In his 24 years with the city, Jue saw Hawthorne change from a sleepy, residential town with about 48,000 predominantly white residents to an ethnically mixed city with a population of about 70,000.

Once evenly divided between single-family homes and apartments, Hawthorne saw its stock of apartment units grow by 70% in the 1970s and 1980s. With higher densities came higher crime and a greater need for public services.

Although Hawthorne remains a blue-collar community with income levels slightly above the county average, money spent on city services has increased more than 500%, from $4 million in 1966 to $25 million today.

Associates praise Jue for his stewardship in the face of those changes.

In his dual roles as city manager and head of the city’s redevelopment agency, Jue oversaw three projects that combined commercial and residential redevelopment. He helped the city win economic development grants that paid for the new City Hall. He also played a significant role in upgrading Hawthorne Boulevard--the city’s commercial heart--and creating its Senior Citizens Center. In 1989, he was named Citizen of the Year by the Hawthorne Chamber of Commerce.

Jue always kept the door of his office open. He enjoyed the support of the police and firefighters’ unions and the Hawthorne Municipal Employees Assn. Among his legacies, many say, is a close-knit network of highly paid, competent department heads who work well together.

But detractors say Jue’s easy-going, self-effacing demeanor created a leadership vacuum at City Hall. They accuse him of running a fat operation, rewarding old friends with jobs and depending too much on redevelopment rather than cutting expenditures to pay the city’s bills.

Although Jue was personally well liked, critics say he lacked the political clout and credibility to win public support for revenue-boosting tax measures he proposed. As examples, they point to the failure of three tax measures he and the council supported over the past two years.

Jue’s style was “not making waves, going with the flow, letting things drift,” said George Walter, who headed the November campaign against Proposition D, a property tax measure to raise money for more police. “As far as I’m concerned, he wasn’t an aggressive city manager.”

But others praise Jue for bringing the city through political turmoil. After voters recalled three City Council members in 1982, Jue “was able to keep things going and able to come through it working with everyone,” Mayor Betty J. Ainsworth said.

Jue, who earned $120,000 this year and will retire with a pension of about $76,000 a year, will be succeeded by Public Works Director James H. Mitsch.

Jue’s recommendation of Mitsch, with whom he owns an Inglewood apartment building, is one of several appointments that critics describe as cronyism. Supporters call it nurturing talent within the city.

Many said Jue’s ability to hide his emotions allowed him to provide leadership despite an often contentious five-member City Council.

“He consults everyone, makes everybody feel good that they’re part of the plan,” Ainsworth said. “He appears to be humble, but nobody gets ahead of him. When somebody has thought of something, you can tell he has already thought of it.”

Mark Arseneau, president of the Hawthorne Municipal Employees Assn., is another fan of Jue. “He’s the number one dude in my book,” Arseneu said. “There’s nothing bad you could ever say about the guy.”

But the problems of the city loom large.

Although sales taxes provide the largest portion of the city’s revenue, its biggest commercial center, Hawthorne Plaza, is not thriving.

The mall, which opened the year Jue became city manager, was expected to demonstrate the benefits of redevelopment. But it never met those expectations. Plans to build two office buildings near Hawthorne Plaza collapsed, and the mall was left with a largely empty parking lot, crime problems and disappointing sales.

“The feeling was that the mall would be a catalyst to get other redevelopment going, but it never really did,” Jue admitted.

Still, he defends the three other redevelopment projects started during his term as city manager, which are in various planning stages. He says redevelopment is a painless way of increasing revenue and the city’s “only means of overcoming our economic shortfalls.”

Hawthorne Plaza’s mixed success left the city with a no-growth budget in 1989-90. The city is unable to beef up its Police Department, despite a rising crime rate and one of the lowest ratios of police officers to residents of any city in the South Bay.

In the face of those problems, some, such as Councilman Steven Andersen, would have welcomed a little more aggressiveness from Jue.

“Kenny tends to be non-confrontational--even his closest friends will tell you that,” Andersen said. “The positive is that Kenny allows the council majority to make the decision and work it out. The negative is sometimes you need to be confrontational” to get things done.

A resident of Hawthorne since the age of 5, Jue attended Leuzinger High School. His father, who emigrated from Canton, owned a grocery store. His uncle grew asparagus and corn on a 150-acre lot that is now part of Hawthorne Airport.

After a knee injury kept him out of the Navy in 1951, Jue became a civil engineer. He worked in Inglewood as an assistant engineer before taking over the Public Works Department in Hawthorne in 1967.

A tall, stocky bachelor, Jue became known as an honest, reliable, hard-working official who always returned phone calls.

He is extremely private. Except for a few plaques recalling victories by the city softball team, his office walls were always bare. His desk was all business; he stacked it with papers and reports, but kept photographs of his family and his St. Bernard hidden in a drawer.

But among his friends in the Rotary Club, where he has been an active member since 1967, Jue is known for being able to make people laugh. And friends who share his passion for motorcycles say he sheds his quiet exterior when he mounts his Honda Gold Wing, which he hopes to ride around the perimeter of the United States after he retires.

Several city department heads, asked to come up with embarrassing anecdotes at Jue’s retirement party, found it difficult to roast their even-tempered boss.

But several council members obliged, joking that Jue’s endurance was due to sleep apnea, a disorder that occasionally caused him to nod off during council meetings.

When council members Andersen, Charles Bookhammer and David M. York greeted him at the retirement bash with a chorus of snores, Jue joked about the affliction, which was diagnosed in 1983. “I’ll have you know that sleep apnea is an asset for a city manager,” he said.

At the end of the party, attended by officials from around the South Bay, Jue was presented with a set of golf clubs and a $200 gift certificate for a golf store.

Jue, who had told friends that he looked forward to golfing during his retirement, thanked those who organized the event, saying he was overwhelmed by the warmth of their friendship. “Believe you me, I will never forget this evening,” he said. “I really don’t think I deserve it.”