In 1975, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. published a book of essays about software development titled The Mythical Man-Month. On page 17, there’s a quote about project management that rings so universally true that 40 years later investor Warren Buffett was hailed as a business genius for uttering a slightly rephrased version.
“The bearing of a child,” wrote Brooks, “takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.”
Rick Cole can probably relate to that.
Elected to the Pasadena City Council for District 2 in early March, Cole takes office during the second week of December when Felicia Williams’ term expires.
Nine months affords a guy plenty of opportunity to review some of his life choices while prepping for another stint as a City Council member.
Cole previously served 12 years on the Council, which included a turn as Mayor. He moved on from elective Pasadena politics nearly 30 years ago and eventually took City Manager jobs in Azusa, Santa Monica and Ventura. He is currently Deputy City Controller for the City of Los Angeles.
But now, he’s back.
Cole sat with LNP’s editorial team in our air conditioning-challenged office on a late July afternoon to chat about being vs. doing, why transparency helps improve your batting average in politics, and about some of the most headline-worthy decisions the city faces.
Reporting 101
Cole has a degree in American Studies from Occidental College and a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University. While at Oxy, Cole wrote for a local muckraking magazine titled New Pasadena. Later, he was one of the founders of Pasadena Weekly.
“With New Pasadena, we would try to publish at least once a month, but often not on a regular schedule,” said Cole. “And we would write stories about the various outrages in the city…that they are going to tear down this poor neighborhood or they discriminated against this group of people or that something was an instance of police abuse. And we would also write about some of the inspiring ways in which people were organizing and fighting back. And at the time, I was interested in becoming an attorney…because I had no visible talent except being glib, I guess, which seemed perfect for an attorney.”
“And that’s what I entered college expecting, to eventually go to law school,” said Cole. “But between my community journalism and writing for the college paper, I suddenly found my curiosity was really being tapped about the reasons why things couldn’t be better.”
“I had a conversation with Chris Holden when we served together on the City Council that illuminated a path for me that I hadn’t really thought through myself.”
So we started off the conversation by asking a softball question about how Cole felt he handled the transition from journalism into politics and government.
“I had a conversation with Chris Holden when we served together on the City Council that illuminated a path for me that I hadn’t really thought through myself,” said Cole. “We were just chatting one time before a meeting began, and he said ‘Rick, some people want to be something. I wanted to be a pro football player or a pro basketball player in the NBA, and then I got injured in college and I ended up following in my father’s footsteps by pursuing politics.’
“And then Chris said, ‘You strike me as somebody who wants to do something.’ That came at a period in my life where it sort of made sense. I didn’t pursue journalism or politics or government because I wanted to be in journalism or politics or government. I wanted to do something and that something was always to make things better. I know that sounds corny.”
“I was drawn to journalism because I liked writing and I appreciated writing, respected writing and I become a good writer,” said Cole. “Columbia, like so many graduate programs, wants to impose upon you drill sergeant discipline. They break you down, destroy your pride, and then teach you the things that they feel you need to learn. Normally, I wrote opinion pieces. And I was, in fact, the Editorial Editor of the college paper. So the instructor quickly discerned my strengths and weaknesses. Every day, five of us would go on assignment into this giant city of New York…pushed out and told to come back with stories.”
“One day the instructor said, ‘Your assignment is: What do gay people do in the dark? There’s a Gay Pride March tonight and I want you to come back with the answer,'” said Cole. “We all gulped. But I went to the march and realized I had to get over my shyness and respect for people’s privacy. I never asked that exact question, but I approached, among others, a priest. When I asked my version of the question, he gave me a non answer. A graceful non answer. We fell into conversation and I remember it turned into a pretty decent story.”
“It forced me over the hurdle of asking people very direct and often personal questions,” said Cole, “and that made me a far better reporter. Now, I am grateful for that painful experience. It served me well in all the leadership roles I’ve had the privilege of holding, because when I’m curious I start asking questions.”
A city playing to win or playing not to lose
Pasadena has more at risk than a lot of other cities when it comes to brand management. Maybe that’s because hundreds of millions of dollars flow into the city annually from world-class sporting and entertainment events, so taking chances with Pasadena’s image has long been discouraged.
And that means some topics are never discussed by local elected officials, or are intentionally re-framed to avoid any potentially painful soul searching. For some politicians, an easy to apply but ineffective patch can be the less risky alternative.
With that in mind, we wanted to know from recovering journalist Cole if he saw Pasadena’s communications strategy as fundamentally reactive or proactive.
“I had that conversation with the city’s Public Information Officer this morning,” said Cole. “I’m slowly making my rounds to spend a little bit of time getting to know the people I’ll be working with. I think she feels that the city could be more proactive with its communication and smarter about using its media resources. She didn’t say so directly, but I’m reading between the lines a certain amount of caution.”
“Risk aversion is common in local government,” said Cole. “For better or worse. I was much more willing than a typical City Manager to take some risks, which would allow me to do things that other people wouldn’t even bother to try.”
“Some of them worked out perfectly, but not all,” said Cole. “Communication is one of them. I always thought to be candid, and sometimes that burned me because people would take things out of context or just point to the negative.”
“With reporters and also just generally,” said Cole, “I developed credibility because I would acknowledge when things went bad and didn’t try to hide bad news. And then when reporters had a story about bad news that wasn’t true, I could say well, no, that’s not true. And that gave me some credibility. If the reporting was accurate about something bad that happened, I would say yeah, we made a mistake there or we missed that.”
“And, you know, my batting average was not perfect,” said Cole. “But it rose over time. I feel like we got a fair shake because we were transparent.”
“I’ve given a great deal of thought to that, and have scar tissue to show for it.”
“There is a widespread mentality in local government and in the corporate sector as well that we only want good news to get out,” said Cole. “We want to tell people what we think they need to know. And I suppose that works for a corporation, but there are some that built a brand around being more authentic.”
“But it certainly doesn’t work for democracy,” said Cole. “Because the difference is that the people of Pasadena are not the consumers of government. They are citizens. And they’re not just taxpayers. They’re owners of a business. You know, all these words like shareholder, stakeholder, citizen, resident, taxpayer and consumer have different meanings to different people. But ultimately there’s a fundamental difference in that we get the government we deserve.”
We asked Cole if the public’s input on civic issues was simply not what many of the city fathers want to hear.
“I’ve given a great deal of thought to that, and have scar tissue to show for it,” said Cole.
“The best brands are not necessarily the most burnished,” said Cole. “Ernest Hemingway said Americans are born with a built-in bullshit detector. But I think we’re all gullible. There are things you could sell me that you couldn’t sell to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. We operate as best we can, but I think we can smell it when we’re being sold with partial information or propaganda.”
“Having been in public life for four decades,” said Cole, “I’ve made my share of mistakes and there were some successes. But I think most people don’t believe that politicians are perfect, especially at the local level where you can see them going to the market or walking their dog.”
Making the community part of the process
We then asked Cole about the perception within the business community that there is a lot of crime in Pasadena. With the police department being served the largest slice of the city’s budget pie chart, is there a disconnect between what they want and what they need to do their job?
“I’m not gonna weigh in on the substance of that so much as the mindset,” said Cole. “What I see is an institution that has become complacent and smug and fails to reckon with the titanic changes that are happening in our world and in the city.”
“And that’s not unusual. I’ve spent 40 years in public service seeking to alter that trajectory,” said Cole. “It’s a dangerous one that has caught up to local governments, and it has put many of them in fiscal distress.”
“I think they’re failing to come to grips with some real issues, from homelessness to public safety,” said Cole. “But I think the mindset is: We know best, we’re professionals, we’ll tell people what they need to know and then we’ll operate in their best interests. I think that’s a shortcut that shortchanges the ability to have sustainable adaptations in a changing world.”
Cole then touched on two other significant civic topics where perceptions and reality diverged.
“Whether that was the right solution or not, reasonable people can disagree.”
“Let me give another example,” said Cole, “rent control.”
“Clearly, there was widespread acute pain among many tenants in our city, and tenants make up a majority of our population,” said Cole. “But that was not on the radar screen of most of the council members. And so they dismissed that as a concern they should deal with. And the result was they were shocked when the citizens approved by 54 percent a very tough rent control law. And, back to the messaging. The messaging, again, was everything’s fine.”
“And clearly, it wasn’t,” said Cole. “Whether that was the right solution or not, reasonable people can disagree.”
“I think it’s unreasonable to deny that there was a real issue there,” said Cole. “Had the city been more proactive and more open to dissenting perspectives, we might have had a less controversial outcome than the one we’re dealing with.”
“Another example is reconstructing the (main) library,” said Cole. “I have a lot of sympathy with (City Council members) Jason Lyon and Jess Rivas where they felt that we, as a city, short circuited what Jason said was the conversation that was needed about our city’s priorities, how to fund this effort, and what the library is going to look like when it reopens.”
“And, as Jason acknowledged, and I would agree,” said Cole, “had we had those conversations, we might very well have come to these same conclusions. Not everybody would agree, and that’s okay. But we would solidly know that the community had been brought along.”
Great article! As a fan of Rick Cole’s straightforward, courageous and forward-thinking approach to dealing with Pasadena’s local concerns, I am very much looking forward to having him as our District 2 councilman and what can be accomplished.