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FIRST TERM AS MAYOR 201

The day after Christmas we held a mock city council meeting. Jan Heidt
acted as city manager and I played the part of the city attorney. Allan Cameron
acted brilliantly as Lottamore Garbage, an official with the dump development
firm of Blarney, Smarm and Slime, who was accompanied by his attorney, Jill
Klajic. It took our new city council, consisting of Zhenya as Mayor, Katya
Levochskaya as Mayor pro-tem, and Irene Martynova, Natalia Babushkino and
Tanya Molodyakova as council members, only a few minutes to make a decision.
It would have taken less time had the debate started in English rather than
Russian, and had the council not tried to have a confidential discussion about the
issue. The city attorney asked the council members to speak into the microphones
so everyone could hear. This surprised Mayor Lindgardt, who retorted, “We were
trying to make a decision what to do with your rubbish!” They made it, quickly.
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Elsmere dump was not to be built.
I had asked Zhenya what she wanted to study, and where. Business
Administration at Leningrad State University was her answer. I introduced
Zhenya to the admissions office at USC. They had never had an undergraduate
apply for admission from Russia, they said, and after seeing her official transcript
offered her a full tuition scholarship. She completed her degree in four years,
earned her MBA at Harvard Business School, and went to work as a management
consultant in New York City.
Artyom Bakonin, Yana Brilova, and Anton Senkevich were among the
students. I saw their teachers, Helena Uspenskaya and Svetlana Yegorova, in
Leningrad later in the year. Svetlana is now Svetlana Lynch, and teaches English
at College of the Canyons.
Valeria Pogouliaeva was given a scholarship to go to college in Nevada.
Katya Levochskaya graduated from College of the Canyons in journalism, and
became a successful member of the media in Russia. Irena also earned a degree
from COC, and, after marrying an American, graduated from San Francisco State.
Concerning local issues, we began to consider development of a river park,
and sued the developers of Stevenson Ranch for solutions to some of the traffic
problems that their project would cause. David Breier, attorney for Dale Poe,
would not even talk with the city about our concerns. Senior housing began to get
serious attention from the council. Our transit system was growing rapidly, with
the purchase of over twenty buses in 1990 alone.
In January 1991 we began to discuss taking over the water business,
developing a municipal water system, in our effort to gain control over growth.
We knew we could not use the water issue to stop growth, but at least the
developers would have to sit down with us and talk. I saw this as a long-term
project, but was very disappointed when the Castaic Lake Water Agency bought
the Santa Clarita Water Company. I agreed with the board members of the
CLWA who felt that the job of water agencies is to provide water, but was certain
that they had no concept of what it was to make good public policy.
Steve Ryfle of The Signal asked me if the Sheriff’s Department was taking
precautions in light of the war in the Persian Gulf. I hated questions like that. I