Goodbye to leader

Former Costa Mesa Mayor Donn Hall, whose influential career of public service spanned four decades, died at his Costa Mesa home Monday. He was 79.

Because of an inoperable tumor on his pancreas, doctors said Hall didn’t have long to live and his wife, Trudy, decided to take him home Friday to spend his last days. He died quietly, just after 5 a.m.

“When he came home he was so happy ... I had three days to say goodbye to him. I was sitting every night with him,” Trudy said.

Serving multiple terms on the City Council and the Planning Commission, Hall vocally championed private property rights and Libertarian values.

He is perhaps best known as the face of a proposal decades ago to give Costa Mesa direct coastal access by creating a marina on a strip of Westside land. It failed by a single vote on the council.

Hall was also seen as a strong advocate for the little guy. No resident’s issue was too small for the City Council, in Hall’s opinion, and he would frequently use his power to get people’s concerns addressed, even when it meant involving executives in City Hall.

City Manager Allan Roeder was just beginning his long career as Costa Mesa’s top executive when Hall was on the council.

“At times it would drive me and the staff crazy, but Donn really took individual constituent complaints and concerns to heart. One of the most valuable things I learned in this business came from Donn. He said you need to keep your eyes open and make sure you don’t become another government bureaucrat that looks for 19 reasons why you can say no instead of looking for that one reason that lets you say yes,” Roeder said.

With a background as the owner of a manufacturing business, Hall brought a blunt, straightforward and often intimidating presence to politics. At one Planning Commission meeting during his last term on the committee, he angrily called fellow Commissioner Jim Fisler a communist.

“He just pounded his fist and said, ‘Oh, so you want the bureaucrats at City Hall to make decisions instead of elected and appointed officials?’” Fisler recalled. “That was just his personality: It just snapped out at you. Nothing was really personal, it was just his way of retorting to try to show weakness in your argument. He’s going to be greatly missed. He’s irreplaceable.”

Despite his brusque manner, Hall maintained close friendships with many of his colleagues. After verbally attacking Fisler, Hall insisted on making a public apology at the next commission meeting instead of brushing it under the table, which meant a lot to Fisler. Fisler counted Hall among his good friends and visited him in the hospital shortly before he died.

County Supervisor and 25-year Costa Mesa resident John Moorlach got his start in local politics alongside Hall shortly after he moved to the city. The two worked together in a group called Mesa Pride that focused on putting a positive spin on new development in the city when many were fighting it.

Moorlach calls Hall “one of our city fathers.”

“There are only a handful of people who really get involved,” Moorlach said when Hall fell ill late last month. “He has always struck me as a player. He knows everyone in town and he’s a go-to guy.”

Trudy hopes to have memorial services for her late husband Saturday or Sunday at Estancia Park, near the adobe, but arrangements have not yet been made.

Hall is survived by his wife and her three children, Frank Galea, Brigitte Ohlig and Sonia Conners; his brother, Doug Hall; and two nieces. He had no children of his own.

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.