Pasadena Councilman Censured a Second Time : Government: In a rancorous session, his colleagues urge Isaac Richard to resign, and they weigh suspending some of his privileges. He makes a scathing reply and storms out.

Ending an extraordinary day of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and public wrangling, Pasadena City Councilman Isaac Richard’s colleagues closed ranks late Tuesday and voted to censure him for alleged curses and threats made to the city clerk.

On Wednesday, council members were considering sanctions against Richard, including removal from a commission that oversees the Rose Bowl and loss of some council privileges.

“The council is fed up to the eyebrows with him,” one city official said Wednesday. “If there was any remorse, the council would have held off and found some alternative.”

Tuesday’s dramatic finale, at which only reporters and two or three spectators were present, was a rancorous, late-night confrontation with the volatile councilman in which two council colleagues urged the lawmaker to resign and a third called upon Richard’s constituents in Northwest Pasadena to take action to remove him from office.

Then, for the second time in a year, all six of Richard’s colleagues voted to censure him.

“You’re full of poison. And you’re poisoning this community,” Mayor Rick Cole told Richard, urging him to step down. Vice Mayor Kathryn Nack also asked Richard to resign.

Richard’s reply was scathing. He called Cole “a narcissistic, pompous hypocrite, who has worked assiduously to insult me and my community.”

The councilman also called colleague Chris Holden, the other black on the council, “Uncle Tom” for appealing publicly for a recall drive against Richard. Then, shouting “Cowards!” at his colleagues, Richard stormed out of the council chambers.

It was the culmination of a day in which everyone at City Hall was preoccupied with Richard, whose two-year tenure has been characterized by almost continuous controversy and wrangling--including allegations of drug use and sexual assault.

Richard’s colleagues first censured him in August, 1992, after city Housing Administrator Phyllis Mueller filed a sexual harassment complaint against him for cursing and threatening her during a council meeting.

This spring, Richard disappeared for six weeks, reportedly signing himself into a desert treatment facility for an undisclosed “chemical imbalance.” The treatment was preceded by accusations from an unidentified woman who told Pasadena police that Richard had sexually assaulted her during a visit to his house. The woman later declined to press charges.

During the council meeting Tuesday, Richard’s wife, Sharon Wooden, long-silent on issues involving her husband, got up to appeal for an end to what she said was harassment of her husband.

“There are people in this room who have Isaac tarred, feathered and ready to be lynched,” Wooden, a prosecutor in the state attorney general’s office, charged as the councilman, sitting on the dais, cradled their 7-month-old son on his lap.

Three separate groups of city employees presented letters complaining of the hostile work environment created by Richard’s combativeness. Leaders of organizations representing Latino employees, managers and department heads all complained about Richard’s behavior.

The latest chapter involving Richard stemmed from an incident last week in which the councilman cursed a room full of city officials.

City Clerk Maria Stewart, who was present during the meeting in Cole’s City Hall office, lodged a complaint last Thursday with the city’s Affirmative Action Department, charging Richard with sexual harassment.

Richard said his remarks were addressed only to City Manager Philip Hawkey, not to Stewart or the other people in the room.

“I cursed him and he deserved it,” said Richard, who said he felt that the city manager was trying to exclude him from participating in a council-ordered investigation of the Tournament of Roses.

But Stewart said she was offended by Richard’s obscenely sexual language. She added that after she filed her complaint, Richard telephoned her and spoke in a threatening manner.

“He said to me, ‘Just remember, I’m going to see you every Tuesday (at council meetings), and what goes around comes around,’ ” Stewart said in an interview. “I interpreted that as a threat.”

Richard filed a complaint of his own with the Affirmative Action Department against Stewart, saying that she had made a blanket indictment of Pasadena blacks. Stewart, a Latina, said the charge was fabricated.

“I can’t believe that someone would make up statements to create more discord and anger,” she said.

Richard also filed a complaint against Hawkey, charging that the city manager was systematically trying to divide the city’s black and Latino communities. He said that Hawkey had tried to exclude blacks from conferring with former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, who has been hired by the council to look into allegations by black groups that the Tournament of Roses discriminates against blacks.

Hawkey said the charge was absolutely ridiculous, adding that a black attorney and a black-owned accounting firm would constitute the staff of Reynoso’s investigation.

The council, meeting in closed session, rejected both of Richard’s complaints but sustained Stewart’s complaint. Then council members gathered again in the council chambers to censure Richard publicly. By then, however, the council had lost most of its audience and the cable television channel, which broadcasts council meetings, had shut down for the night.

Under the terms of an amendment to the city Charter last year, twice-censured council members could, for a year, be deprived of many of the privileges of council membership--such as travel expenses, free tickets to Rose Bowl events and the use of a city personal computer. The council will consider such action next week.

“We’re dealing with a person who has admitted having a serious medical problem and a serious drug problem,” Cole said. “There’s no evidence that either has been dealt with.”

In an interview, Richard said he has no intention of resigning. He termed the censure action as irrelevant, saying his power on the council stems from the support of his constituents. “Every time they try to disempower my people, I will stand up to them,” he said.