New City Hall

After 25 years of debate, it appears Covina will be getting a new City Hall. The City Council voted this week to accept a recommendation from the Chamber of Commerce that calls on the city to build a new City Hall rather than attempt to renovate the old one. The council, on a 4-0 vote, directed the city staff to draw up plans for a new City Hall at the corner of Citrus Avenue and San Bernardino Road, next to the city's police station.

After a federal judge ruled last week that the city of Stockton can reduce its debt through bankruptcy, observers began to frame the battle as one of municipal bondholders against public employees. But it's hard to shed tears for either of them. During the boom years, Stockton promised its future public-sector retirees free lifetime medical coverage. It also adopted rules allowing workers to spike their pensions by letting them include overtime and other payments from their final work year to calculate retirement pay. The city also issued far too many bonds.

Final review of the lease for a new City Hall will be before the City Council tonight. If council members approve the lease with the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., the city is expected to move by June 30 from 23778 Mercury Road to an office building about a block away. City officials have negotiated a monthly rent of $1.36 per square foot--considerably less than the $2.17 per square foot that Lake Forest now pays. The monthly savings would total about $3,000.

Step aside, Barbra Streisand and Tom Petty, the Malibu City Council is moving in. The city purchased a new City Hall -- the former Malibu Performing Arts Center -- in an auction for $15 million. The 35,000-square-foot building, which has featured performers such as Bob Dylan and Sting, along with Streisand and Petty, was auctioned Friday because of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings by its owner, Vineyard Christian Fellowship. The city has always had a goal of owning its own city hall, City Manager Jim Thorsen said.

A city consultant recommended Monday that San Diego construct a monumental Civic Center complex that would include a highly visible "landmark" City Hall with a rotunda capped by a dome, a spacious public plaza and a central library.

Despite overwhelmingly rejecting a proposed $18-million City Hall in a special election last month, residents here still want a civic center built. According to a poll conducted by the city earlier this month, most voters support construction of a new city hall but want to ride out the recession before spending the necessary millions. "The results showed that people want to hunker down because of the economy," said Mayor Sharon Cody.

City Council members recently voted to buy the Ralph B. Clark Orange County Transportation Authority building for $1.2 million and convert it into a new city hall. Expected to open late this year, the new city hall will be at 11222 Acacia Parkway, west of the current City Hall and across the street from the city's public safety building.

The Ralph B. Clark building has officially become property of the city, paving the way for conversion of the three-story structure to a new City Hall. In a ceremony last week, officials with the Orange County Transportation Authority turned over the building to city officials after signing the final escrow papers. The city bought the building at 11222 Acacia Parkway last December for $1.2 million.

With the city still a shambles from the Northridge earthquake, Fillmore officials rejoiced Thursday upon learning that a promised grant to build a new City Hall should arrive within the next 60 days. The federal money will pay for a $1.3-million, two-story City Hall building, which will temporarily be used by more than a dozen displaced downtown merchants who have been operating out of a tent and trailers during the past 16 months.

After nine years as a renter, the City of West Hollywood is on the verge of having its own City Hall. The City Council on Monday authorized the purchase of an office building at 8300 Santa Monica Blvd., near the geographic center of the city. The move to the building, to be completed by 1995, will cost the city $8.4 million, including roughly $2.1 million to build a parking garage and cover the cost of office design.

When an ice cream cone can set you back $4.55 at nearby Fashion Island, why balk at spending upward of $60 million for a new City Hall in Newport Beach? Especially one that'll be hailing distance from the Pacific Ocean. That amounts to a no-brainer in this bejeweled city -- as good a representative as any of Orange County's wealth and va va voom. But before we trot out all the old cliches about runaway opulence in this refuge for the idle rich, let's meet a member of the loyal opposition.

The nation's economy might be crumbling, and the housing market may be in crisis, but Newport Beach is still dreaming big. The wealthy beach town's aging City Hall, a conglomeration of overstuffed buildings wedged next to a supermarket, is getting a makeover. Five designs for a new civic center offer flamboyant and wildly divergent visions for the symbolic heart of Orange County affluence. What could be more Newport Beach than an illuminated, sail-shaped roof and an upscale wine bar?

It was just a box filled with a bunch of papers when Inglewood sanitation superintendent Harry Frisby sealed and buried it more than three decades ago. But by the time his son Harry Frisby Jr. unearthed and cracked open the time capsule Thursday, the contents had become mildew-smelling history. The capsule from 35 years ago, and another from 50 years ago, were opened last week in a ceremony marking the South Bay city's centennial anniversary.

Nearly everyone in Newport Beach thinks they need a new City Hall. Getting them to agree on where to put it is another story. On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to locate a new civic center on a 12-acre site in Newport Center that was slated to become a park. The fiercely contested ballot initiative has led to more than $800,000 in campaign spending, an amount almost unheard of for a local issue in a city of its size, including donations of more than $600,000 alone from one restaurateur.

Think fighting City Hall is impossible? Try moving it. Newport Beach's humble hub on the Balboa Peninsula, which resembles an overcrowded elementary school campus, has long stood in stark contrast to the town's seaside estates. There's wimpy air conditioning, sparse parking and trailers that serve as offices -- a far cry from the elegance and excess that have drawn glitterati including John Wayne and Kobe Bryant to this town.

East Los Angeles has long fought for its share of services and its place among the communities around it. On Wednesday, hundreds of its residents and leaders turned out to celebrate a victory in that campaign with emotional as well as practical implications.

Some residents wryly call it the White House. One wit labeled it Campbell Hall, a reference to Fillmore Mayor Roger Campbell. Campbell prefers Payne's Palace, after City Manager Roy Payne. Today you can call Fillmore's new City Hall occupied. Municipal employees spent Thursday unpacking boxes, vacuuming carpets and polishing the municipal seal in the terrazzo floor of the vaulted lobby of the elegant neoclassical $2-million building.

April 26, 1928: The motion picture industry orchestrated an extravaganza to dedicate Los Angeles' new City Hall. Film producer Joseph Schenck was master of ceremonies, Sid Grauman ran the entertainment and Cecil B. DeMille arranged part of the celebratory parade, which, according to The Times, stretched over five miles and included a lion in a cage.