The Few, the Proud--the Vernonites

Vernon residents like to say they live in a city with a small-town feel.

That is, after the city’s 55,000 daytime workers go home in the evenings and on weekends.

When the U.S. census is completed this summer, Vernon is expected to retain its status for the second decade in a row as the state’s least populated city, a community with only 85 full-time residents.

But the raw census numbers won’t capture the quirky uniqueness of this tiny industrial community or the people who call it home.

Vernon, which is four miles south of downtown Los Angeles, is a town dedicated to industry, a city with no parks, no movie theaters and no malls but with 1,250 businesses, including several factories as big as city blocks.

Most residents living amid the bustling factories and massive warehouses are city employees who reside in city-owned and highly subsided housing. Many are electricians, utility workers or mechanics who must sign a pledge to be on call for one week out of every 10 weeks in case of a city emergency, such as a riot, flood or fire.

City Council elections routinely are canceled--like the one that was scheduled for April 11--because incumbents rarely are challenged. The council’s current members have been in office for more than two decades, prompting some critics to liken the city’s leadership to an oligarchy. The mayor, who once was accused but later exonerated of using fraud to stay in office, has been on the council for 44 years.

Residents say that living in the 5-square-mile industrial city takes some getting used to. They have to put up with heavy freight trains that rumble through the city at all hours and the pungent fumes from factories, like the Farmer John pork processing plant and Kal Kan’s dog food factory.

Still, Vernonites say they are a content group who share a sense of community rarely found in Southern California’s urban sprawl.

What other city can hold an annual picnic that is attended by nearly every resident? How many cities have a mayor who can name almost every citizen?

“It’s like a big family here,” said Isabel Saenz, who has lived in Vernon for 30 years with her husband, Edward, a water department employee. Their teenage granddaughter, Lorena Saldana, lives with them.

Many residents play on the city’s softball team, the Vernon Tigers. Since the city has no baseball diamond, the team plays only away games. Vernon’s city bowling team plays in nearby Huntington Park.

There are perks that come with living in Vernon.

The utility fees are the lowest in the state and the subsidized rents are cheap, allowing some residents to save up to buy a house elsewhere. A three-bedroom house with wood floors, a backyard and a two-car garage is only $225 a month (if you don’t mind living a block from a railroad line).

The commute for workers who live in the city is practically nil, and city employees work only Monday through Thursday.

Maria Kirkland and her husband, Curtis, an electrical technician, recently moved from Fontana, where they paid $1,300 a month for a four-bedroom apartment. In Vernon, they pay $145 for a well-maintained one-bedroom apartment.

The move saves the couple $1,155 per month and cuts Curtis’ two-hour daily commute to about five minutes.

“He is happier and so am I,” Maria said.

Many Vernonites live in a city-owned cluster of single-family homes with freshly mowed lawns and tinted windows just around the corner from City Hall. Other homes, including a few privately owned ones, are scattered throughout the city.

After business hours, Vernon becomes a virtual ghost town. Only a few firms operate around the clock.

“After 5 p.m., this place is dead,” said Albert De La Cruz, a utility worker who has lived in Vernon for four years with his two daughters. “It’s nice and quiet.”

Residents say it also is safe.

Vernon police reported 599 serious crimes, including two murders and one rape, in 1999, but police say most of those crimes were directed at the daytime workers and at the factories and warehouses.

Vernon’s 58-member police force provides a ratio of one officer for every 1 1/2 residents. In contrast, the Los Angeles Police Department has one officer for every 393 residents.

“Since the residential population is so low, we know most of the residents,” said Vernon Police Lt. James Rodino.

In fiscal 1999, the city maintained a general fund budget of about $25 million, much of which was spent maintaining and upgrading the city’s streets, sewers and other utilities. It also had a surplus of about $1 million.

With low rents and low crime rates, Vernon residents say they have few complaints about the city’s leadership.

“We just like the people who are running the city,” said Saenz, who added that city workers are quick to fix any problems in the city-owned housing.

“They will even come over to fix a broken doorbell,” she added with a smile.

Perhaps because of such prompt service, Vernon voters--all 55 of them--have rarely disagreed with the city’s elected officials.

For example, in April 1998, Vernon residents voted 40 to 0 to approve a council-sponsored ballot measure to clarify the city’s tax code and authorize the council to establish a parcel tax for warehouses. The council sought the tax because warehouses and trucking companies take up 32% of the city’s land but generate only 4% of the revenue.

“Vernon is the type of city that you can’t compare with anyone else,” said Ric Loya, a councilman in neighboring Huntington Park. “When you are talking about 55 voters, that is a family.”

He said outsiders occasionally grouse about the city’s entrenched leadership, “but you are not going to change it.”

Vernon Mayor Leonis C. Malburg, whose grandfather, John Malburg, co-founded the city in 1905, said he can’t remember the last time someone tried to unseat him.

Councilman Larry Gonzalez, who was scheduled to seek reelection this month along with Councilman William Davis, has been in office for 26 years. He said he has been challenged only once, more than 10 years ago, by an out-of-town real estate agent who moved into one of the city’s few private homes to qualify to run for office. Gonzalez beat the challenger easily.

Gonzalez and Malburg shrug off suggestions that council members rarely are challenged because most of Vernon’s citizens are city employees who don’t want to provoke their bosses.

“We are just trying to make this a happy place,” Malburg said.

Still, controversy has been no stranger at Vernon City Hall. City Administrator Bruce Malkenhorst makes more than $200,000 a year and is one of the highest-paid city officials in California. But he has defended his salary, noting that he is not only the city administrator but also the city clerk, finance director, personnel director and treasurer. He runs the city-owned Vernon Light & Power Co. and is secretary of the Vernon Redevelopment Agency.

Malburg was indicted by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury in the late 1970s for alleged election improprieties, in particular a charge that he did not live in the city. The mayor owns a large home in Hancock Park, but claims that his legal residence is a suite in a Vernon office tower. The mayor was reelected after being indicted and was later cleared of the charges in court.

In 1986, the city generated more criticism from county and state officials when it included more than 60% of the city’s businesses--and several parcels owned by Malburg--in a redevelopment project to reduce blight and improve property values. Malburg said he abstained from voting on all redevelopment matters.

In the past few years, Vernon has been the target of harsh criticism from neighboring cities that worry about the air pollution created by the city’s factories.

Plans to build a hazardous waste treatment plant in Vernon, within 1,000 feet of a high school in Huntington Park, were abandoned in 1990 after years of protest by neighbors and area legislators. And a proposal to build the state’s first toxic waste incinerator in Vernon stalled after opposition.

The city was named for George R. Vernon, a Civil War hero and one of the area’s earliest settlers. It was incorporated with 1,200 residents. But over the years, residential neighborhoods were purchased by developers to make way for factories and warehouses.

Concerned that the city’s housing would disappear, the city started to buy houses and apartments in the 1950s to ensure that municipal workers would be available during after-hours emergencies, such as chemical spills and factory fires.

Only two months ago, several city workers were called in the evening when a truck overturned, closing Downey Road.

The city’s population has decreased gradually in recent years, from 261 residents in 1970 to 85 today, according to the state Department of Finance.

Malburg said he doesn’t worry that the city’s current population will shrink much more, because the city won’t allow any more of the housing to be demolished. There is a short waiting list to live in the city-owned housing, and Malburg is confident that workers will continue to line up to live in Vernon.

“I think it will keep going the way it is for a while,” he said.