Burbank Removes Panelist for Racial Slur

BURBANK —  A longtime civic activist, who used a racist slur against Asians during a City Council meeting and refused to apologize, was stripped of his post on a city panel Tuesday night.

City Council members voted 5 to 0 to dismiss Mike Nolan from the Public Service Department Advisory Board, saying they were disgusted and dismayed by his reference to executives of Sony Corp., a Japanese-owned company, by a racial term in a speech to the council last week.

“Mike’s comments last week were totally inappropriate,” Mayor Bill Wiggins said. “We have a very diverse community, and one of the keys to making it work is that we respect everyone’s ethnicity. He was offensive, totally out of line.”

Nolan, a fixture at the council’s weekly meetings, used the slur during an impassioned, extemporaneous speech criticizing city subsidies to large companies during the public comment portion of the July 23 meeting.

Several council members condemned Nolan and asked him to retract his remarks, but he refused, saying he had served in the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam and “that’s how I feel” about Asians.

Council members said that by acting swiftly to remove Nolan, they hoped to send a message that racist language and behavior will not be tolerated in city offices.

“He tried to say that because he served in Vietnam, it’s OK for him to use racial slurs against people he doesn’t like,” Councilman Bob Kramer said. “I was in Vietnam myself with the Marines, and I don’t think it’s acceptable for anyone to use that kind of language, least of all in a City Council meeting.”

Nolan did not attend the meeting and could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Nolan’s removal marked the second time the Burbank council has fired him from an appointed city post. In 1991, the council stripped Nolan of his job as the city’s representative on the Metropolitan Water District board of directors after he was accused of running up excessive travel expenses.

Nolan was appointed to a four-year term on the unpaid, volunteer advisory board, which meets monthly and advises the Public Service Department on utility rates and related issues, in October by a narrow margin, with Wiggins and Councilman David Golonski opposing his selection.

Wiggins said he opposed Nolan’s appointment to the job last year because he is “disruptive.”

“He’s angry, he rubs people the wrong way, and I didn’t think that’s the kind of person we want representing the city,” Wiggins said.

Nolan is a brother of Pat Nolan, a former Republican Assemblyman who was convicted in 1994 of racketeering and is now serving a state prison sentence.