Second of two parts
Re “Ewell Says Goodbye”
At his final City Council meeting last Monday night, Interim City Manager Lamont Ewell, now gone, was reminded of one of the few setbacks of his luminous tenure.
An oddly matched collection of advocates for West Los Angeles College’s controversial construction expansion program paraded to the podium. Unaccountably reticent, they asked the City Council to reverse its rejection of the Settlement Agreement concerning construction with West a fortnight earlier.
Peculiarly timed, it also was meaningless because it is unrelated to the pending legal approval of the project to be voted upon by the L.A. Community College District trustees on Wednesday, Aug. 11.
The above display aside, Mr. Ewell believed he had found a panacea for the historic animosity between the college and City Hall when, in June, he led a team into settlement negotiations with a West team headed by President Dr. Mark Rocha, also now departed.
Mr. Ewell’s team of city staffers recommended embracement of the compromise agreement, which the Council thrashed and sternly criticized.
“I was disappointed,” Mr. Ewell said, slowly, before leaving office yesterday. “But I respect, and I honestly understand, the Council’s concerns that, while the Agreement did not go far enough to address the issues of the community, especially for those surrounding the college, I thought it at least addressed the matters of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report. “The SEIR is the one area where the city will continue to have to resolve the differences, especially assuming the trustees vote approval on Aug. 11.
“The city will have to decide whether there is a need to pursue this in court. I am hoping that is not the case. I would not advise it if I were here.”
And then the very low-key Mr. Ewell began to wend his way into a more poignant, more personal dimension of his life.
“I am always thinking about an old African proverb, ‘When two elephants fight, only the grass suffers.’ I think that is the case here.
“If the city of Culver City and the West L.A. College fight, the only people who are going to suffer are the students and the residents of this community.
“It is just not the fight you want to be in. There has to be a way to bring resolution — and I am happy to say, those discussions are under way.”
In the current talks, Public Works Director Charles Herbertson has replaced Mr. Ewell until new City Manager John Nachbar arrives from Kansas City on Aug. 16.
Mr. Ewell was asked if he held an opinion about why City Hall and West L.A. College have been in a chronic state of hostilities.
“I always have opinions, but that does not mean they are right,” he said. “I think it is a lack of communication. Typically, that is the underpinning of any disagreement. The ability to communicate openly with the college and work through the differences, will allow them to at least minimize the friction. There will always be friction because there are two different interests here.”
Emotional Separation
In his new post-retirement role as a circuit-travelingfill-in administrator for city governments with emergency needs, Mr. Ewell’s best weapon has been an ability to compartmentalize.
When he leaves, it is over.
When he left City Hall for the last time yesterday afternoon, friends were certain that he closed the door with finality on this community and will start with a fresh page on his next temporary gig.
As calmly and softly as he counseled against suing the college, Mr. Ewell replied to the philosophical question. “I try hard to practice separation,” he said. “I try to make sure if I have put all of my ability into achieving something and it does not succeed, it is not because I didn’t try. It is because I wasn’t the right person. Therefore, I let it go and focus on the things I can do. I don’t know when I learned it. I think it just happened over time.
“Possibly just an evolution of life and experience, not trying to carry that parachute of old baggage and emotions with you. It gets too heavy at some point. “I have learned to let it go, not to personalize it, and refocus on the next item.”
When talk turned to his childhood, growing up the third of four children in Compton in the 1950s and ‘60s, Mr. Ewell smiled wryly and said he came from “a traditional broken home.”
In his case, that may have been an advantage, providing him with bonus time with his uncommonly sagacious mother, Gwendolyn, whose 83rd birthday he and his wife helped her celebrate last weekend.
“When my Mom and Dad divorced, I was 6 years old,” Mr. Ewell said. “My Mom raised four kids on her own, working two and three jobs. My sister, who is 15 months older than I, was the unofficial household leader on my mother’s behalf.
“She worked those jobs to keep us fed, and she had expectations that all of us would go to college. We did.
“…That we would be respectful.
“In fact, every morning — I remember this as a child — she would come in from work in time to make sure we had eaten breakfast, we had done our homework, and we were dressed properly for school.
“I was living a regimented life that some would call ‘a broken home.’ We never knew that.”
Mom’s Favorite Adages
Mrs. Ewell has lived to see her 56-year-old son achieve the pinnacle of his career.
He retired last January from fulltime duty, long before the age when she could have afforded to step back, but while she is very much alive and can bask in the sunshine he inherited from her.
“We were well-balanced, thanks to her, and focused on what matters,” Mr. Ewell said. “She is the expert in old adages.
“We grew up with her always telling us things.
“She would say to us, ‘Ignorance is not bliss.’ That was her reaffirmation that we were to get into school and learn. We were not there to socialize.
“At the time, she would say ‘Clothes do, in fact, make the man.’ We did not have the best of clothes, but they were clean every day. She taught us, individually, how to press our clothes — and we did.
“She would say things like ‘What you don’t know will hurt you.’
“Those are the things we grew up learning, and we have tried to live them.”
