Mayor rises to the occasion

Tested by the landslide, Elizabeth PearsonSchneider shows she has what it takes. ‘She is Laguna’s angel,’ says a former opponent.Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider came into her own in 2005.

Long disdained by the more liberal element in town, Pearson-Schneider surprised critics when she formed an alliance with her 2002 election opponent, Councilwoman Toni Iseman, to forge a compromise on the relocation of the city’s maintenance yard to Act V -- and then beguiled them with her passionate, compassionate leadership when the June 1 landslide devastated the city.

“She is Laguna’s angel,” said Arnold Hano, a founder of Village Laguna, a group that strongly opposed Pearson-Schneider’s election to the City Council.

Pearson-Schneider firmly pledged the full resources of the city to restore Bluebird Canyon infrastructure and made a personal promise that the folks who lost their homes in the landslide would not be forgotten -- a ray of light to which the displaced families clung in their darkest hours. The City Council and management backed her all the way.

She created the Adopt-A-Family program, through which generous private donations are funneled to help the displaced families, and she drafted friends, supporters and even Democrats -- not normally backers of the Republican mayor -- to help.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency refused -- without explanation and in spite of the advice of federal, state and private geologists -- to declare the slide part of the winter’s rainstorm-caused natural disaster, Pearson-Schneider successfully appealed for assistance from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

And although Pearson-Schneider doesn’t like taxes, she supported a special election to allow voters to decide if they wanted to temporarily raise taxes to bolster the city’s general fund, which was depleted by the costs of restoring city infrastructure in Bluebird Canyon.

Pearson-Schneider’s leadership was so valued that the council unanimously elected her to a second consecutive term as mayor -- not exactly a favor, Mayor Pro Tem Steven Dicterow acknowledged.

Coming into her first term, Pearson-Schneider had to juggle a new marriage, her marketing company and the animosity of political and philosophical rivals.

Big blue eyes, a slightly Southern accent, the blond bob and stylish clothes cloak a determined woman who knows what she wants, where to get it and how. Once on course, she is not easily sidetracked.

“She gets things done,” said Planning Commissioner Anne Johnson, a convert to the leadership style of Pearson-Schneider and her lieutenant in the Adopt-A-Family program.

Besides the landslide, the low point of the year was when her beloved mother-in-law suffered a stroke. Each improvement in her mother’s condition is celebrated by Pearson-Schneider.

2005 began with a triumph -- the presentation to the public of a maintenance yard compromise forged by Pearson-Schneider and Iseman.

“It was one of the easiest things I have ever done,” the mayor said.

Maybe -- but it had stumped the council and city staff for almost a decade and had simmered for about 30 years. Still, it portended the year ahead, proving that the council could work together despite differing convictions of its members.

“We have done wondrous things,” Pearson-Schneider said.