Dodgerland

by Michael Fallon

  In time Jarvis became the state chairman of the group, which eventually was known as the United Organizations of Taxpayers (UOT). “We made up our minds,” Jarvis said, “back in 1962, that government officials might continue plucking our feathers, but we were not going to allow them to do it without a lot of hissing on our part.”15 In his position Jarvis took a multifaceted approach to changing the tax code. For one, his group affiliated with hundreds of disparate smaller tax advocacy organizations and individuals from all over the state and worked hard to keep the various parts unified around a central goal: to change tax codes. In addition, to keep the wide-ranging coalition of citizens concerned about taxes connected to the organization—that is, a paying member—Jarvis intentionally aimed to be a “tax leader for the state of California,” focusing particularly on the reduction of taxes. This meant he didn’t try to get involved with every small local or municipal tax fight, but chose instead to be a key source of tax information for the entire state.

  Jarvis traveled almost constantly, giving speeches to local community groups and writing arguments against tax-increase proposals that were placed on state ballots. Between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, Jarvis submitted arguments to the ballots on several dozen tax increases, and, he claimed, “almost all of them . . . resulted in the defeat of some type of tax increase.” Additionally, as part of his intentional effort to remain out in front of his organization, Jarvis continued filing to run for various political races around the state. He never actually won any of these races, but that was not his true intention. “A lot of stories have been written,” said Jarvis, “about how I was a ‘perennial losing candidate for office,’ but whoever writes those stories just doesn’t understand that I didn’t expect to be elected mayor, or to the U.S. Senate, or to any other office. All I was doing was using my campaign as a platform for tax reduction.”16

  After 1965 Jarvis was increasingly recognized as the leader of what was now being called the “tax movement.” By 1970 that Jarvis had begun to gain political muscle was evident in an article that appeared in the June 7 edition of the Los Angeles Times. Describing him as a “maverick Republican who once tried to start his own Conservative Party,” the article gave a surprisingly level view of Jarvis and his motives. “He says he hopes before he pushes up daisies,” said one associate, “he can do something for his fellow man. . . . And that’s what makes him tick.” As for what Jarvis’s true intentions were, the article quoted him saying: “I think my philosophy goes a little bit toward the idea the less government the better, because I’m convinced that you can’t put enough brains in that little town on the Potomac to run this country. I have never seen a good example of it.” Detractors in the article, of course, had a different take on Jarvis. “He’s got a fantastic ego,” said one opponent, “and he’ll do anything to feed that ego. Taxes are unpopular, so he’s against taxes. He’s a cornball. He’s as kooky as they come.” Still, no matter what you personally believed about Jarvis, the article acknowledged, he was the chief spokesperson for a large and growing number of “disgruntled California property owners” increasingly convinced they were gaining the muscle to change the tax laws. Just how much muscle Jarvis’s group had, wrote Times reporter William Endicott, was “open to debate, but [Jarvis’s] name has become well known in the past five years before legislative committees, boards of supervisors, city councils and school boards all over California.”17

  The growing awareness of Jarvis’s tax movement was an offstage menace to Bradley’s efforts to keep his city’s Olympics bid afloat. Always supremely attuned to the political winds, Bradley was aware of the feelings of voters in Los Angeles, even before his team submitted its final bid. In a speech that declared his candidacy for a second term, therefore, Bradley made sure to highlight his budget management skills, saying that it was a “kind of enlightened stinginess” that had led him to “produce balanced budgets for three consecutive years without new taxes.” In addition, Bradley pledged that, if reelected, he would “continue to streamline government” and “make it work better for all of us, for less money.”18

  Despite the mayor’s hard sell, Bradley’s team of organizers suffered several surprising blows in late May and early June as the public mood seemed to turn more and more cynical. With the election fast approaching on June 6, the Los Angeles Times announced the results of a preelection poll that focused on the key public initiative that Angelenos would be voting on: so-called Proposition 13, also known the Jarvis-Gann Property Tax Relief Initiative. The initiative had been filed through the state’s relatively unique ballot-initiative process, which allowed proposed laws or constitutional amendments to be voted on in an election, provided the law’s advocates collected a certain number of signatures in advance. Early on in his work with the United Organizations of Taxpayers, Howard Jarvis had realized the potential of California’s ballot-initiative process.

  According to the California ballot-initiative rules, advocates had to obtain the signatures of 8 percent as many voters as voted for governor in the previous election. The UOT’s first attempt to launch a tax proposition yielded only about 100,000 signatures, far short of the 500,000 or so required. “We didn’t even come close to qualifying,” said Jarvis. But after that first attempt, in 1968 he and his group successfully supported getting an initiative on the ballot—Proposition 9, written by Phil Watson, the Los Angeles County tax assessor—that attempted to limit property taxes. Proposition 9 was attacked by the political establishment, however, and received only 32 percent of the vote in the election. In 1971 Jarvis and the UOT launched their third attempt to reduce property taxes through the ballot-initiative process and again failed. “We fell about 100,000 signatures short of the number we needed to qualify for the ballot,” Jarvis later wrote. “At least that’s what the politicians said . . .”19

  According to Jarvis, the fact that the proposals kept getting defeated was ironically “encouraging” to the politicians. “They evidently felt,” wrote Jarvis, “that the defeat of three straight constitutional amendments to limit property taxes gave them carte blanche to raise the cost of state government.”20 As Jarvis estimated, state spending rose from 3.1 percent of the gross state product between 1967 and 1973, to the rate of 6.5 percent a year between 1974 and 1978. By 1978, Jarvis said, nearly 15 percent of the state’s workforce was composed of government employees, twice the number it had been in 1950 and well over the national average. Additionally, Jarvis claimed, with so much money in the system, the likelihood for graft and corruption was inevitable, and, indeed, between 1973 and 1976 an unusual number of legal cases against corrupt local tax assessors were filed in the state attorney general’s office. With the situation growing more pressing, Jarvis and his group attempted again to raise enough signatures for a ballot initiative in 1976 and 1977, failing just short both times. In 1978, however, after establishing an alliance for the first time with a tax-relief group from Northern California run by Paul Gann, the petition for what would become Proposition 13 garnered a shocking number of signatures—1,500,000 of them. And while opponents to the initiative tried various age-old political tactics—doomsday speeches by prominent politicians, semiofficial studies predicting disaster if Proposition 13 passed, even a “fake” competing tax-relief initiative that mandated a much more insignificant tax reduction—this time Jarvis and his cohorts were prepared. They had seen it all before, and they were ready with responses even before those who opposed them took action.

  All through the winter and spring of 1978, support for Proposition 13 grew among likely voters across the entire state. In March just 35 percent of voters supported the initiative, against 27 percent opposed (and 38 percent undecided). But in April that support grew to 41 percent (against 34 percent opposed and 25 percent undecided). Then, on the eve of the election in May, a clear majority of 52 percent said they supported Proposition 13, while opposition had grown only slightly, to 35 percent (and only 18 percent undecided). The numbers in Los Angeles County in the May poll were eve
n more strongly in support of the Jarvis initiative—with 63 percent of local voters in support against just 30 percent opposed.

  Though the potential passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 would have no direct bearing on funding an Olympic Games in 1984, the swirling antitax, antispend rhetoric did affect the ongoing discussions about Bradley’s bid. “In the pressure-cooker atmosphere of Los Angeles,” wrote Sports Illustrated reporter William Johnson, “with anti-spending fever rising daily in the intensifying campaign for Proposition 13, local politicians perceived that fierce attacks on the Olympics and the I.O.C. seemed to go down well with voters.” When council member Bob Ronka, who opposed the Olympics bid, returned from Athens, his rhetoric was unequivocal. The IOC had “whipsawed,” “double-crossed,” and “backstabbed” the negotiators from L.A., according to Ronka. “Other council members joined the chorus,” Johnson continued, “and City Controller Ira Reiner, known to have ambitions for higher office, announced that he and City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, long a fiscal gadfly and opponent of all manner of spending for the Olympics, were going to launch a campaign to put what amounts to an anti-Olympics referendum on the ballot next spring (the earliest it could be done).”21

  Despite the growing political mess in his city, Bradley remained steadfast. His Olympics bid was, after all, part of a comprehensive plan to continue transforming Los Angeles and give it the sense of civic identity befitting an internationally significant city. Still, uncertainty grew. Feeling that there were few options but to show signs of surrender to the IOC, city officials announced on May 16 that they had “conditionally” agreed to the IOC’s stipulations regarding the financial responsibility for the 1984 Olympics. As to what this “iffy” deal actually meant, Mayor Bradley, in a city meeting that was closed to the press, said that the city was accepting final financial responsibility for the Games, though he was quick to point out that such acceptance of responsibility was contingent on being able to obtain an insurance policy that would protect local taxpayers against any financial losses.22 As a result of the city’s “conditional” acceptance of the contract, on May 19 the IOC announced it was giving the Games to Los Angeles. But at the same time the IOC recognized the city’s ploy. The award, therefore, the IOC maintained, would be only on a “provisional” basis until the city signed the actual IOC form contract and agreed to all of its rules. If the city failed to do so by July 31, the IOC maintained, the committee would withdraw the award and open a call for new bids. Though a grim-faced Mayor Bradley did his best to put a good spin on this news—saying that he maintained the city’s position of not doing “anything that would place a financial liability on the city”—everyone knew that this news almost certainly had doomed the city’s Olympic hopes, as everyone expected the city council not to approve the agreement.

  In early June, as Mayor Bradley continued trying to find a clear middle-path compromise that would assuage critics at home while satisfying the strict conditions of the IOC, an astounding sudden turn of political tides was looming. As the June 6 election approached, it became more and more clear to observers that, for the first time in state history, voters were poised to take charge and force their government to stop spending their money. In the swirling political winds of the moment, of course, all manner of public officials took public stands on the issue. On June 1, in an obvious ploy to curry voter favor, city controller Ira Reiner published an article in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that said he was joining forces with the organizers of Proposition 13 to stop the city from spending money on the Olympics. As a result, the antitax forces themselves “began to exert more and more pressure on the fortunes of the Games.” The pressure would only worsen when Proposition 13 passed by an “astonishing, top-heavy vote.”23

  The passage of Proposition 13 would have a profound effect on people around the state. The resulting tax rollback, which immediately reduced property taxes in California by 57 percent, would also, experts estimated, “slash some $7 billion from the revenues of municipalities across the state.”24 Its passage also gave rise, according to historian Kevin Mattson, to a flurry of national antitax activism in 1978 and 1979. “In November 1978, sixteen states organized antitax initiatives for the ballot; twelve passed. By July 6, 1979, National Review celebrated Proposition 13 as a major breakthrough victory in the conservative war for America, a sign of the country’s grassroots rejection of liberalism that had worked successfully as reform.”25 To many Proposition 13 signaled a post-Watergate sea change in the relationship between people and their government, the first great victory of a looming “taxpayer revolt” in the country and a turn toward an unfettered, free-market, corporate-friendly outlook among voters. To some Proposition 13 was the first cornerstone in the attempt to construct a new shrunken-government political reality.

  More locally, Proposition 13 complicated Mayor Bradley and his administration’s efforts to solve the city’s increasing tangle of problems—including promoting affirmative action hiring in the city, developing a comprehensive rapid-transit system, integrating local public schools through forced school busing, and the ever-present problem of crime (including the still unsolved Hillside Strangler murders)—even as he dealt with floundering negotiations over the city’s Olympics bid. As a result after the election the mayor was wounded and stymied, privately expressing anger and frustration. Voters in Los Angeles, he noted in 1978, were simply not showing up to voice their thoughts on matters of import to the city. “The apathy on the part of the electorate is something which has always been a problem,” Bradley told an interviewer, noting that the election turnout had been scant—just 15 percent of eligible voters. “We have never had the kind of turnout at the polls that some countries have achieved. . . . I think that we cannot escape the fact that there is just a sense that a person’s vote really doesn’t matter, doesn’t count, so why bother to go and vote.”26

  Adding to voters’ sense of futility and discouragement, Bradley reasoned, was the tangle of opinions and ideas and harmful rhetoric that had come in the wake of the Olympics negotiations and the debate over city finances and taxes. Bradley said in a public address shortly after the election: There has been so much bombastic rhetoric, all negative, about the Games, all predicting huge deficits, all voicing pessimism and gloom. Even if we could afford the most aggressive public relations program we couldn’t undermine that talk. It is repeated over and over and over. It is a product of the climate of Proposition 13, of politicians grandstanding for the public. But it is also caused by terrible reporting in the media. This isn’t going to cost anyone one dime in property taxes, but no one wants to listen to that. No one will listen anymore. No one will believe me. The atmosphere has been poisoned.27

  As a result of the continuing frustration, Mayor Bradley briefly actually considered giving up the dream. But even as the sudden antitax rebellion exerted pressure to reconsider the city’s financial situation, and even as the blowback from emboldened political opponents threatened his own political standing, Bradley set aside his frustration and resolved himself to see his efforts through to the bitter end. “We could say to hell with it and abandon the Games completely,” Bradley said, taking pause to let his words sink in, “but I think there have been too many people involved, too much effort expended, too many months of too many lives given to this effort for me to play the demagogue for short-term political advantage and walk away from this bid. We’ll stick it out.”28

  Still, with political winds blowing hot around the Olympics issue, the mayor realized he needed to come up with a different approach if there was any chance to have it accepted at last by the IOC. In early June, therefore, Mayor Bradley finally “threw up his hands” and named a “citizens’ committee” to study the situation and come up with a compromise solution. “I want this committee,” Bradley said when announcing his decision, “to explore all realistic possibilities for holding the Olympics in Los Angeles without fiscal risk to the city and, for now, I want it removed from all debate in the city council. We have to get
the issue outside the atmosphere of city hall, where demagoguery and negativism and transparent political opportunism have made any kind of meaningful debate or decision impossible.”29 It was, to be sure, a blatantly desperate, high-minded step by the man who had led the city’s Olympics bid process for much of the past five years. The only question that remained was, would it work?

  23

  Nothing Is Clicking Right Now

  Part of the Dodger makeup is the Hollywood thing. The Dodgers have an image of being close, and they try to live up to it. But from what we hear, they’re fighting among themselves.

  —San Francisco pitcher Bob Knepper, May 27, 1978

  After the trade of Glenn Burke to the A’s on May 16, the Dodgers’ season plodded onward in much the same up-and-down way as before. Between May 19 and 21 the team took two of three from the Giants to improve their long home-stand record to 7-5. On May 20 the Dodgers had announced that, just as with Glenn Burke, they were reluctantly giving up on the once-promising reliever Mike Garman by trading him to the Montreal Expos for two pitching prospects.1 The twenty-eight-year-old Garman, who had appeared in just ten games for the Dodgers in 1978, earning no saves and no wins with one loss and a 4.41 ERA, would record thirteen saves and a 4.40 ERA for the Expos over the rest of the 1978 season before being relegated to the Minors in 1979.2 Garman’s fate was disappointing but understandable, as the big right-hander’s effectiveness, which had seemed so promising early in 1977, had simply fallen off the table after he hurt his elbow in June. And the Dodgers, caught in a dogfight in their effort to earn a spot back in the World Series, simply had no time to wait and see if a middling reliever would ever return to form.