The Fresno Bee from Fresno, California • 13

The Fresno Bee Sunday January 5 1997 A13 JIM PATTERSON: I AM THE MAYOR Council will tread uncharted ground Strong-mayor transition Mayors duties Executes and enforces laws and policies Appoints controls and removes city manager Prepares dty budget for deliberation and approval May veto council decisions except those noted May not veto emergency ordinances and land-use decisions except for initial adoption of general community and specific plans May not veto administrative or quasHudidal matters such as award of budgeted contracts or council verdicts on conditional-use appeals Serves as liaison between staff and council but prohibited from directly or indirectly giving orders to subordinates of the city manag-er Promotes economic development recommends legislation and policy and investigates affairs of city Eflimfg duties Ptwtoa by John ThaFremo Bea Long line of the law Mayor Jim Patterson prepares to present badges at the swearing in of the latest group of Making his poinL Mayor Patterson presides at the head of the table during a meeting with the Fresno Fire Fighters Local 753 strong-mayor government differs from those of other cities By Anne Dudley Ellis and Felicia Cousart The Fresno Bee With much fanfare the mayor and four new council members will be sworn in Tuesday But then what? Now that the city will be governed under a Btrong-mayor forrt of government the nope ia that the bureaucracy will be streamlined The fear is that it will result instead in power struggles leading to gridlock The new structure is untested in Fresno and is different from the form in other cities with strong-mayor systems As the first strong mayor Jim Patterson will need to figure out how to work with a council that he is no longer a part and where he has no vote The council will need to figipe out exactly where its powers lie because the mayor can veto many derisions it makes The council also will need to figure out how to get things done for their constituents because city employees will be overseen by the city manager who is con- trolled directly by the mayor Factor in that four of the seven council members are brand new That means the next few months or more could be confusing all new being created now" Council Member Dan Ron-quillo said One council member who did not want his name used put it this way: know what the hell doing" The changes stem from a vote by the people April 27 1993 to trade the longstanding council-city manager style of government for the Btrong-mayor form But Btrong-mayor Btyle is a hybrid because unlike many other big cities it retains the traditional role of a professional city manager to oversee the staff and not merely serve as a functionary for the mqyor Patterson has selected Jeffrey Reid former undersecretary of the state Business Transportation and Housing Agency to be his city manager Reid used to be a partner in the Fresno law firm of McCormick Baratow Sheppard Wayte and Carruth The hope said transition team chairman Bill Stewart ia that the new system will make government more accountable to the people because the mayor and city manager can be held directly responsible for how the city op- erates Stewart president of the State Center Community College District joined with nine other citizens to issue a preliminary report last week on how the city can smoothly change over to the new government Under the new system the mayor replaces the city manager as the chief executive officer The mayor has veto power over almost all council decisions and ia in charge of the budget The mayor hires and fires the city manager The mayor no longer sits on the council Instead council members choose a president to oversee meetings and serve as a liaison to the mqyor The council can override the veto but needs five votes to do it Creating a potentially touchy situation cm one of City most important functions land-use decisions the mayor cannot veto land-use votea in general but does have veto power over general specific and community plans The mqyor already is involved heavily with the drafting a new general plan the blueprint for dty growth With bo much attention focused on the strong mayor the new roles of the council and the new position of council president have Deen overshadowed In fact the city Charter pro- -vides no structure for the council or specific duties for the council president leaving the seven members to hash out thoee details They may do some of that at the first meeting of the new council Tuesday want a good working relationship with the mayor but the council should 1m retain a certain amount of independence from the executive branch" Fresno police officers opportunity to bill himself as a successful businessman when he entered city politics When dealing with city employees he often refers to his private-sector experience But how good of a businessman was he? than he was a is first glib answer Then he said remember him as one of the best salespeople ever seen To be in politics you have to be He presents himself well Other than that you have to judge him on his And what kind of boss was he? a question city employees are asking now that Patterson is about to become the top administrator with some power to hire and fire He was fair and decent but headstrong Bays Ed Aaron a salesman at KIKV until 1986 anybody he gets his own ideas and he listen to Since being elected mayor Patterson has little to do with KIRV though he remains an equal partner and draws $25000 a year from the station That supplements his current salary of $57270 which rises to $99300 Tuesday His income has allowed the Pattersons to live in a nicely furnished 2499-square-foot home north of Herndon Avenue since 1982 and to send their children to private Christian school Sharon Patterson concentrates on being a mother and political wife By most accounts the Pattersons have a Btrong marriage She Bpeaks of having anticipating his return from out-of-town trips But in the early 708 their marriage was tested by a brief separation the pain of infertility and two failed adoption attempts and I learned that marriage is something you can work on through the tough Patterson says i Friend A1 Geller a promoter and former neighbor says the Pattersons were in the early 70s His theory: An empty nest left them empty inside Then with Geller's help the Pattersons adopted an 18-month-old Vietnamese orphan in April 1975 They named him Brian James BJ for short Rigid Jim Patterson who had prayed for Geller because he was a Jew married to a Catholic suddenly could see the world in broader terms The Pattersons later adopted two more children: Jason now 16 and Lindsay now 1L BJ is now 23 The couple raised them in the evangelical Protestant subculture in which Jim Patterson had been raised He was dearly comfortable there but it can be an insular and stufly place Eventually he grew restless His first forays into the bigger cosmopolitan world were nonpolitical: leading humanitarian trips to famine-struck Africa in the early 1980s Then he stepped totally out of the evangelical cocoon and into the secular world of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce Continued on Page A14 Continued from Page A12 In the beginning there was Sherwood Patterson Sherwood had a son Norwood who bad a son Jim And it was good or at least plenty interesting when the family history ia told Jim Patterson says his grandfather was the most influential man in his life and he can imagine what Sherwood Patterson would say to him today: proud of you kid but don't get In the 1920s Sherwood Patterson was a small-time preacher on the plains of Kansas He eventually moved on to Colorado where he started buying radio time for his sermons Later he acquired his own station Family history says Sherwood was so popular on radio that he started his own church which became known as the Radio Prayer League Inc Sherwood made a name for himself in Denver with a blend of dvio-mindedness and showmanship He fed hungry kids and walked a muzzled bear through Denver neighborhoods urging curious children to come to Sunday school In 1937 Sherwood Patterson moved his family to San Francisco where he bought another Bta-meKSAN-i tion It became KSAN-AM and was Boon playing the blues to attract African-American listeners This was decades before niche marketing became standard radio practice But Sherwood Patterson always was a risk-taker and a shrewd businessman Norwood only son continued in the family business He also continued a Patterson tradition of mixing good deeds with self-interest In the middle 1950s Norwood Patterson went to Washington DC to deliver petitions demanding equal rights for African-Americans He sa the it station was trying to attract Under Norwood Patterson the station thrived and the Pattersons prospered until the legal troubles that eventually would reverse the fortunes Jim Patterson has fond memories of a sunny childhood in the '50s mid early '60s before the difficulties One of his favorite tales is about the time he put his younger brother and sister into the family clothes dryer He was I a spanking But his fa- ther forgot So young Jimmy reminded him and was spared because of his honesty Patterson loves to tell this story a Pattersonian version of George Washington and the cherry tree But father and brother say the housekeeper put the children in the dryer Patterson insists not the way Ac remembers it By the Norwood Patterson and his family were living in the wealthy Bay Area suburb of Hillsborough Though Jim Patterson has downplayed the family's wealth they eventually settled in a threeatory 9000-square-foot mansion at 2416 Summit Drive The Pattersons also owned a 110-foot oceangoing yacht the Nevada Lady and an airplane Young Jim Patterson drove his red Thunderbird con Enacts all dty laws and regulations Decides most landHise issues without threat of may-oral veto Appoints and removes council assistants Appoints and removes dty attorney and dty derk Controls all legal business Directs requests of dty departments through dty manager Qtf managerdiiOes Oversees dty departments Attends council meetings Pro Tern Mike Briggs The transition team made 13 recommendations for the council president many of them about fostering communication between the council and the mayor and assuming ceremonial duties The transition team also said the president should be put of the Cabinet which also would include the dty manager dty attorney and department The team recommended the president set the coundl agendas run the meetings appoint ad hoc committees work with the media and represent the mayor when he is not available Newcomer Henry Perea said he thinks the coundl will need a working session to set up a structure For example there has been talk of the entire council meeting only once a month instead of every week as it does now The rest of the month subcommittees of members would meet on specific such areas as finance planning or public safety Except for incoming Council Member Ken Steitz council members are hesitant about that idea saying it could slow decisions going through is a real natural Perea Baid But spending a little too much time focusing on form At some point we have to get to the substance of The transition tram also suggests prohibiting coundl members from going directly to de-partment heads or employees with district service requests Instead the coundl member would go through the dty manager That always has been the rule but it has been largely ignored by coundl members a suggestion that sit well with Perea or fellow newcomer Chris Mathys Mathys estimated his District 2 office would get anywhere from 1000 to 1500 calls annually for such services as sidewalks curbs gutters and streetlights follow-up is so important if someone does call said Mathys who added that the biggest complaint he heard on the campaign trail was that service requests were not addressed Perea said: elected to represent our constituencies I want to create another foyer of vertible while attending Burlingame High School where he was a diva: on the swim team The school was almost all white a mi of Burlingame blue nlln and Hillsborough wealth But Norwood and Dawn Patterson preferred church friends for their children so they hosted dances for Christian teen-agers in the ballroom of their mansion Theirs was a protected conservative world barely touched by the counter-culture movement that was gaining momentum in 1966 just as Jim Patterson was getting his diploma Patterson says he was bored in high school He had the grades for college but planning to follow the footsteps of father and grandfather he opted to attend a Bhort-term radio Bchool after graduation In June 1967 Jim married sweetheart Sharon LaTourneau They were both 19 The wedding was held in the sumptuous gar- Am nf tha Hilluhimnugh estate Flowers were planted to match the purple and yellow color scheme Musicians played from the balcony Through the years Jim and Sharon Patterson have said publicly that they met on a church-Bponaored cruise of San Francisco Bay It was a cruise but it was on the Patterson yacht Bending the truth seems to run in the family Dawn Patterson the mother told re- porters a white lie about how she met her husband When he corrected her she smiled and said: a good In 1968 newlyweds Jim and Sharon moved to Fresno so he could work at KBIF the Fresno Christian radio station owned by his father The young couple bought a house near Cedar and Gettysburg avenues and started attending Peoples Church where they are still members Peoples the largest congregation with 5000 members preaches a bedrock evangelical Protestant theology: men and women are sinners and need to be born Doug Hoick music minister at Peoples became a friend of Jim almost immediately Today they are best friends and fishing hiiAiipg Hoick says: still has the hope and courage of a young man While had some disappointments not cynicaL I want to be careful how I say this but Am has a sense of destiny that he's really called to make a But in the early 1970s it was hard to tell Jim Patterson was destined for anything special It was a time that tested his career as well as his marriage In 1973 Patterson lost his job at KBIF when his father lost the radio station in a tax case that sent him to federal prison Norwood Patterson was accused of mishandling income taxes and Social Security taxes withheld from the wages of his employees at KBIF and KICU a Fresno television station A 1970 indictment Baid he owed the federal government $141000 Convicted by a San Francisco jury he served nine months in the federal prison at Lompoc Norwood Patterson turns quiet today when he puts his spin on his legal problems the penalty for sloppy ing transactions but I lived through he says with resignation in the kitchen of his home near San Luis Obispo The tax case cost the Pattersons almost everything including the mansion on Summit Drive Jim Patterson does not easily talk about that house He says he was lonely there too many rooms and it reminds him or his conviction But today Patterson says it really was the proverbial best-thing-that-could-have-happened Without family money to lean on he went out and started his own Christian radio station KIRV with the financial backing of Dan Jantz former owner of the Fresno Bible House Jantz put up $147500 to buy the station Patterson and a third partner Dennis Kfossen brought radio experience to the deal always believed in Jantz said was an i ve young man who! ability to do what he said he was going to The early years were lean According to financial reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission KIEV lost $468 in 1975 Revenues and nrofits increased throughout the 1970s In 1980 the station made $44261 on sales of $155622 That was the last year the FCC required public disclosure of financial reports Also that year Patterson and Jantz bought out share of the partnership for $130000 The continued success of the radio venture gave Patteraon the.