Mayor Appeals for Unity After a Storm of Disasters and Divisiveness : Government: Rick Cole cites recent killings, wildfires and racial strife in his call for change. He pledges to avoid infighting at City Hall.

PASADENA —  Mayor Rick Cole appealed to Pasadenans on Tuesday to unite in the wake of fires, killings and divisive stresses prompted by city politics.

Returning to a favorite theme--that of “reinventing government”--in his annual State of the City Address, Cole called upon citizens to get involved in municipal government in the spirit of rural barn-raising efforts.

But compared to last year’s speech, an optimistic listing of City Council accomplishments, this year’s address was full of the pain of recent events--including the ambush slayings of three teen-age boys on North Wilson Avenue and the loss of hundreds of houses in the wildfires that swept the nearby foothills and other areas of the Southland.

“We have endured violence, riots and recession,” said Cole, sporting a new sweptback, wet-look hairstyle. “Will this storm (of conflict) pull us apart or bring us together?

He also expressed apprehension about a dispute between the Tournament of Roses and black protesters, who have vowed to disrupt the Rose Parade unless the organization appoints minorities to its all-white executive committee.

“Will New Year’s Day be a glorious showcase for diversity in action, or a humiliating display of ethnic hostility?” the mayor asked.

For his part, Cole vowed to avoid personality clashes such as one that occurred last week, when the mayor and Councilman Isaac Richard exchanged heated charges in council session about incidents that occurred in the 1970s.

“Last Tuesday, in a moment of frustration, I surrendered to anger,” the mayor said. “Then I was furious with myself, because I know that the only example that I can set is my own.

“I pledge to you that the meltdown that happened on Tuesday will not occur again,” Cole said to the applause of several hundred community leaders, business people and city employees who had gathered to hear the address in the main hall of the Pasadena Public Library.

The council “meltdown” was a prototype for divisiveness, Cole suggested.

“Will our future look like last Wednesday’s candlelight vigil (for the slain boys) or last Tuesday’s City Council meeting?” he asked.

The speech was greeted with widespread approval, though some commented on what they perceived as a lack of specifics.

“It was a good speech,” said Glen Kissel, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer active in fiscally conservative causes. “He can talk the talk, now he has to walk the walk.”

Kissel said he would favor “structural changes,” such as prescribed broadly Tuesday by Cole, as long as they included a term limit on council members. “That has to be looked at very closely,” he said.

“There were a lot of warm fuzzies,” said Darius Hines, a businessman who serves on the city’s Code Enforcement Appeals Commission. “Granted, there have been some critical events recently, but there was no commentary on what the city was going through throughout the year.”

Several noted that, during Cole’s acknowledgments of the special accomplishments of his colleagues, he mentioned neither Richard nor Councilman William E. Thomson Jr., both of whom were absent from Tuesday’s event.

“I thought he came off sort of small because of that,” said one civic leader, who asked that his name not be used.

But for the most part, the response was positive.

“I thought it was important the mayor showed his humanity,” said Meta McCullough, a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission. “Government can be so impersonal.”

Jim Morris, a housing developer who is active in protests against the Tournament of Roses, lauded the mayor for seeking to unify the city.

“He’s trying to bring the city together at a time when it needs it,” Morris said.