By Doug Miller
"The room was much bigger when I started, and more intimidating," Eaton said Monday. "The city manager's desk was here in this corner, and elevated on a platform, so you knew if you were summoned here you were in trouble. The day after Martin Luther King was killed a bullet passed through this window and buzzed Foster Vogel's head. They moved the desk after that."
Eaton was sworn in as city manager last Thursday for the third time. He was city manager for more than 20 years, from 1979 through 1999, a term that saw Long Beach go from an economically paralyzed urban tundra to the mostly revitalized suburb that exists today. That record was not lost on the current council, which can agree on almost nothing else but were able to convince Eaton to come back again, at least temporarily.
The challenges are no less daunting this time. The city's hugely unpopular 25-percent tax increase took effect Saturday, despite the council's (failed) efforts to at least repeal some of the raises included in that budget.
The last council meeting was so volatile it caused the city manager, John Laffey, to resign in disgust. He wouldn't comment on why, but the differences between Laffey and the Democratic majority on the council appeared to be irreconcilable.
It could have been worse.
Mayor Gold, who served from 1932-1938, once had his home seized by the city for failing to pay his taxes, Eaton said. Gold was succeeded as mayor by Louis F. Edwards, of Edwards Boulevard fame, whose tenure is best known for his survival, barely, of an assassination attempt by one of his own police officers.
Mayor Edwards was succeeded by Theodore Ornstein, a rascal and thug whose legacy is the job was abolished once he was kicked out of it.
The position of mayor was replaced by city manager, a job nobody other than Eaton seems to be able to hold onto for very long. When Eaton took office, he was the seventh city manager of the 1970s. On Thursday he became the seventh city manager since, well, since he retired. To complicate matters, he was also the fifth. During his inauguration he called himself the "Freddy Kreuger" of city managers, referencing the unkillable killer of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. Perhaps Billy Martin is a more palatable comparison?
"I don't know," said City Council Vice President Rob Tepper. "Billy was nuts, and he had kind of lost it at the end. Ed is still going strong."
Eaton said his short-term goal is to find a successor, but until then he said he has specific ideas on the immediate running of the city. With the final sale of the superblock going through last month, the city stands to make a $1.5 million profit above what was budgeted for. Eaton said he'd like to see the money invested.
"Instead of just plowing that money into the general fund, I'd like to create a debt-reserve fund," Eaton said. "A million-five could probably pave two roads, but if properly invested, that money could be leveraged to get us even more."
But the question of longevity looms. Eaton, 63, had happily retired and was living in Florida when his wife died in November 2004. A year later he came back to Long Beach for a birthday party in his honor at the home of Carolyn Roganti, the police commissioner's secretary. Last December the two of them became engaged. A September wedding is planned.
Whether he will still be city manager on his wedding day is anybody's guess, he acknowledged. Even if a successor has not been found by then, the council has had a notoriously quick hook with city managers who have not made them look good. And what if Eaton is able to bring peace to City Hall? The city's history makes the city manager job a tough sell for top candidates.
"Who would want the job?" he asked. "It's been so volatile. I'm worried our recent history might scare people away."
Comments about this story? Dmiller@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
