Next month, the South Pasadena City Council will swear in two new council members—the winners of this weeks elections. Both Sheila Rossi and Omari Ferguson say they are excited about the tremendous work ahead and are ready to dive in on priorities set during their campaigns.
Omari Ferguson
Ferguson, whose decisive defeat of Mayor Evelyn Zneimer for the city’s southwest District 1 City Council seat stood at 1,191 (62.6%) to 710 (37.3%) by Friday afternoon, said he felt a “tremendous sense of gratitude for the amount of support I got from our community,” especially as someone who has lived in South Pasadena for only eight years.
“The amount of trust given to me is touching and extremely motivating.” He said he’d knocked on as many doors as possible. He began the campaign with a 1,000 door-hangers and by the close had only a hundred left. “On the street, I tried to talk to anybody and everybody I could.”
Though he did not campaign on it, Ferguson said he’d opposed Measure SP, the city’s effort to secure approval for its Housing Element by amending municipal building height provisions. Voters approved the measure 5,960 (58.5%) to 4,228 (41.5%). “It did not set a maximum height limit” and serves only as “a Band-Aid on what could have been a stronger Housing Element,” he said. Ferguson is also concerned that the city has no design standards and wants to work on that.
“We have a tremendous amount of work to do.” He said his top priority will be “to lean into collaborating with other City Council members and simultaneously work on improving our governance.” Ferguson, an engineer currently chairing the city’s Public Works Commission, especially wants to empower and better leverage the subject-matter expertise of those serving on the city’s many voluntary commissions.
Ferguson said when a commissioner sees an agenda item, “it should be to solicit input, not something that is already done and you’re there to just say ‘OK’ and pass it along. Our commissions are going to play more of a role city council decision-making.” Another reform he’d like is for the Council to set a dollar amount on contemplated projects which would automatically trigger a Finance Committee review.
Sheila Rossi
“Now the hard work begins,” said Sheila Rossi, who by Friday afternoon had secured a 1,136 (53.2%) to 999 (46.8%) win over Charley Lu in the open race for the northwest District 2 city council seat.
Rossi said her first priority will be the hiring of a new city manager. Both of the previous two city managers were first timers to the position, she noted. The next should be more seasoned, have experience driving large infrastructure projects, and be operationally-focused with demonstrated skills in public works planning, running a city and “excited by the challenge. We can’t afford to go cheap,” she added.
“We have a city powered by people, organizations and volunteers. I want a city manger who embraces that community spirit, rather than pushing it away and being antagonistic to it.”
The city is emerging from four decades preoccupied with fighting Caltrans’ plan to extend SR-710 Freeway through town, which constrained its ability to plan and attract new development, she said. “Many things didn’t get done. What we haven’t done since 2018 is have vision for the future of South Pasadena.” The last general plan was in 2017, a year before the final defeat of the freeway. Now the city needs to plan for 2,000 new housing units. Under the newly-passed Measure SP, citizens have elected to place that new density along several specified corridors such as along Mission Street. But she said voters want to know what that new growth will look like.
Rossi said she was formally neutral on Measure SP but personally opposed as the wording of the proposition was “wasn’t clear,” and the process behind it opaque. “It was a little like: ‘trust us, we’ll take care of it.’” But she respects citizens’ decision to pass the measure and sees it as an opportunity for the community to have a say in what it wants. She believes the city needs to to have a “broadly publicized vision planning process” as a way to restore trust. She is concerned “there were a lot of mistakes” in the city’s recently-adopted Housing Element that need to be cleared up.
Rossi, who currently serves as vice chair of the city’s Finance Commission and has been a strong voice during the city’s recent years of financial management troubles, also wants to get the city’s finances in order.
“One reason I’ve been so tough on financial is so we can do long-term planning.” Presently two outside consulting firms, under contracts worth a total of $679,000, are staffing the city’s finance department and handling routine finance operations pending the rebuilding of that department. One is slated to report soon on its work, setting the ground work for the rebuilding.
Rossi said as a commissioner she was unable to support the city’s recently-adopted budget because “it was piece of fiction. Without accurate financial reporting, we couldn’t make a decision. It’s hard to support a document you feel is not based on reality.” She wants a budget based on a strategic plan that looks at resources and priorities, not simply an inflation-adjusted increase from last year.
“I want to bring this community together and want us to get our infrastructure needs addressed,” Rossi concluded. She said she’s excited by the work ahead and the opportunity “to move forward on change.”
