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McAustin Leaving City Council After 13 Years

After nearly three decades of public service, councilwoman will exit city government next week

Published on Monday, November 30, 2020 | 1:33 pm
 
Margaret McAustin

After 13 years on the City Council, and before that two two-year terms as a member of the city Planning Commission from 1993 to 1997, Margaret McAustin will be leaving city government next Monday when her replacement, Felicia Williams, Mayor-elect Victor Gordo, and recently re-elected incumbent council members are sworn in during a special meeting at noon.

McAustin announced in 2019 that she would not seek a fourth term in office in order to spend more time with her husband John, who is battling cancer.

“I started volunteering in an active way in Pasadena in the early ’90s, when we were adopting our very progressive General Plan, which was done in response to a slow growth lawsuit,” McAustin said. 

“I’ve been active for a long time. I’ve always had an interest in politics, both at the national and local levels. So it was kind of in my nature to get involved in my local community. And that was a way that was interesting to me,” she said.

McAustin came to Pasadena almost 40 years ago and settled into the Historic Highlands landmark district, where she lives with John and their dog, Maisie.

In 1998, she was chosen to sit on the city’s Charter Reform Task Force, which recommended changes to the city charter that resulted in the first elected mayor in modern times, and an expanded school board.

McAustin defeated Jim Lomako in 2007 in a contentious council election after current Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Paul Little decided not to seek re-election to the council’s District 2 seat.

“I can’t point to one thing as a signature accomplishment that I’m going to take credit for, first of all because nothing happens without five votes on the City Council,” McAustin said. “I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done and the city has done in supporting affordable housing. 

“Some people think that the city’s interest in supportive housing, affordable housing workforce housing and permanent supportive housing is new, but it’s not. We are one of the most progressive cities in the state in terms of both general housing policy and our progressive affordable housing policies, like the inclusionary housing ordinance,” McAustin said.

“I’m very proud of that, and I’m proud that we’ve been able to make as much progress as we have. It’s never enough. I’m proud of the fact that the city faces its problems in an honest way and tries to address them.”

During her time in office, McAustin helped lead the city through an embezzlement scandal in 2014, and as chair of the Municipal Services Committee was among the first people to question money being siphoned from the city’s Underground Utilities Fund. Danny Wooten, a former Public Works supervisor, was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for bilking millions from the city over a decade. 

“We don’t like to talk about it, but the embezzlement was huge. That was a huge challenge for me personally and for the city.

It was shocking. And I think it shook us to the core that something like that could occur, and we didn’t know about it. But that led to one of the things that I really am very proud about,” she said, “which is the advances that the city has made in technology.”

Those advances led to better safeguards against embezzlement, better communications with constituents, and the ability to process and provide information faster. It also resulted in council field representatives being provided with computers.

“I think the big challenges are often the unexpected,” McAustin said. “When we had the wind storm in 2011, you know, that required a once in a lifetime response for people and the city staff. We had to mobilize in a way that doesn’t occur very often, like a major earthquake, or a fire emergency. That was a big deal. That was an enormous learning experience.”

But bigger changes were on the horizon in 2015 when Mayor Bill Bogaard, who had served four four-year terms as mayor,  opted not to seek re-election and Councilmembers Jacque Robinson and Terry Tornek ran for the mayor’s seat.

Tornek won the race in a runoff election. Robinson was forced to give up her seat to run for mayor and was ousted from the City Council, leaving McAustin as the lone woman on the board. 

“There is a little more testosterone around the dais,” McAustin told the Pasadena Weekly in July 2015. “[Councilman] Steve Madison said it best: ‘The makeup of the council should reflect the community.’ Women are more than 50 percent of the population. We should have a bigger presence on the City Council. It shouldn’t just be older or wealthier white men or retired people. We have to find a way to make running for office easier for women.” 

And things continued to change as social justice issues entered the mainstream consciousness and forced the council to establish a minimum wage, address rent control, although it never came up for a vote, and police oversight. 

“You can ask more of your local government, and we’re doing that with the social justice issues that have existed for a long time, but have more recently come to the fore,” she said.

But as those issues came to the forefront, McAustin, like several of her colleagues, found herself rethinking police oversight after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota.

On several occasions in the past, the council refused to even take up the matter. But now, they were unanimous in their call for civilian oversight.

“For me, the George Floyd incident represented a seismic shift in my thinking, and I think in the country, about the reality of what’s been going on with policing and the Black community and other minority communities. It was just that moment where everything came into focus. It’s tragic, but it was a jolt.”

At the time that this interview was taped, McAustin listed the City Council’s inability to find a solution to rehabilitate the historic but long-neglected YWCA building as a disappointment. Last week, the council voted to enter into exclusive negotiations with a developer.

“There is something so very special about Pasadena, and to be able to be part of curating or protecting what makes us so special is a real tremendous opportunity. I mean, when we could travel, people always had a response if you said Pasadena. They always had some response, whether it was, ‘Oh, my grandmother lived in Pasadena,’ or ‘We used to go there,’ or ‘We went to the Rose Parade,’ or, ‘Oh, the Rose Bowl, you know, we watch it every year.’ There is a connection that people feel about Pasadena. Even people who haven’t been here, you know, recognize it because of the activities that we have,” McAustin said.

“But it’s so much more than that,” she said. “And when people come to Pasadena, that’s what they realize; how much more we have to offer.”

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