Mayor Dale prepares to leave office

BARSTOW • After eight years in office, outgoing Mayor Lawrence E. Dale, who led his last Barstow City Council meeting Monday, leaves behind ranks of ardent supporters and some committed opponents.

Dale lost the Nov. 4 election to Councilman Joe Gomez, who will take office Dec. 15.

Both supporters and detractors talked about Dale’s hands-on leadership style and the amount of time he committed to the position. Although Barstow is governed by a strong city manager system, in which the mayor’s powers are largely ceremonial, Dale took his role as ambassador for the city seriously, making the position a full-time commitment.

His connections at a county and state level helped to bring in project funding, while his private connections sometimes left him open to accusations of cronyism.

Dale called economic development his largest priority for Barstow. He listed the Barstow Industrial Park, the Lenwood grade separation, a new hospital building, and multiple housing developments as major projects he helped to jump-start that he hopes to see come to fruition under the new mayor and Council.

“All I want is to see this city take care of its citizens so there are jobs, good-paying jobs,” Dale said Tuesday.

When Dale first took office as mayor in 2000, he was new to politics. He had retired from his position as a manager with BNSF in 1995 after more than 42 years working for the railroad. He came to Barstow from Kansas City in 1975. Happy to get away from the cold Kansas winters, he and his wife settled in Barstow to raise their children.

Barstow’s Economic Development Director Ron Rector called Dale a tireless worker on behalf of the city. Through his seats on boards like the San Bernardino Associated Governments and the Southern California Association of Governments and his existing connections with BNSF, Dale was able to secure funding and move projects like the Barstow Industrial Park along more quickly than they otherwise would, Rector said.

“The one thing I realized right away is that the mayor is a big supporter of and understands economic development,” Rector said. “It’s not an overnight success. You have to have a plan and time for the plan to take hold.”

Even the apparently stalled effort to bring a casino and resort destination to Barstow, which some of Dale’s opponents have pointed to as a failure, may still bring results, Rector said.

California State Senator Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, who represents the 18th Senate District, including Barstow, calls Dale not only a colleague but a friend. Dale had the state senator’s cell phone number and was not afraid to use it, he said. Ashburn placed enough trust in Dale to name him as the senator’s personal representative to the San Bernardino County Republican Committee, where Dale acts as a liaison between the committee and the senator’s office.

“In general, Mayor Dale has been very strong and forthcoming about the need for jobs and economic growth and development for Barstow and the people in the community, and he’s been a real champion for the relationship between Barstow and the military installations,” Ashburn said.

Spokesmen at the Marine Corps Logistics Base and Fort Irwin agreed, and in a written statement, MCLB commanding officer Col. Kenneth D. Enzor called Dale a “great friend” of the Marine Corps and the base.

The two incumbent Council members who will retain their seats on the new Council, Tim Silva and Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre, both of whom have typically supported the mayor, credited Dale with bringing major projects to Barstow. Specifically, Hackbarth-McIntyre cited the Barstow Industrial Park, the planned Wal-Mart distribution center, and a new, larger facility for the Desert Manna Ministries homeless shelter as projects started under Dale that will come to fruition in the coming years.

“People will start to see in the next two years what he’s worked so hard on,” she said.

Outside the realm of economic development, BNSF labor foreman Martha Rochelle, who works on community involvement for the railroad, said Dale has been a great supporter of organizations like the American Cancer Society and has always showed his face at community events.

“Mayor Dale has been a great asset to not only the BNSF Railway but also to the Barstow community, which will be, I think, a great loss,” she said Wednesday.

Rochelle was among more than a dozen people who tood up during the public comment session at the Nov. 17 City Council meeting to thank Dale for his service, including Relay for Life organizer Renita Hill and a group from the Barstow Association of Realtors.

There were also those who adamantly opposed Dale, like outgoing president of the Mojave Desert Democratic Club, Larry Halstead, who has blasted him at many City Council meetings over the past several years. Halstead has accused the mayor cronyism, handing favors to friendly developers, and of a lack of transparency.

“I think the mayor has ruled over an excessive number of closed sessions,” Halstead said Wednesday.

He also characterized the mayor’s economic development efforts as a failure, citing the apparently stalled attempt to bring a casino to Barstow as an example. He criticized Dale for failing to aggressively court renewable energy projects.

Former Councilwoman Gloria Darling, who stepped down for health reasons in 2006, had butted heads with the mayor on occasion.

“Barstow is not a full-time mayor city, and Lawrence Dale worked it as a full-time mayor,” Darling said, characterizing his leadership style as sometimes overly hands-on.

Despite their differences, however, Darling said she respected him as a person.

“Lawrence Dale has principles and integrity,” she said. “He and I just don’t agree on the direction of his leadership.”

Dale acknowledged that he likely made some mistakes along the way in his eight years, but he could not name a specific vote that he would have changed in retrospect.

“You make your decisions on the information you have,” he said. “... I’m sure I’ve made some votes I would change, but I tried to make every vote informed.

Dale said he has no current plans to run for office in the future but did not rule the possibility out entirely.

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(760) 256-4123 or asewell@desertdispatch.com

Lawrence E. Dale
• Mayor since 2000
• Born in Kansas, moved to Barstow in 1975 while working for the railroad (now BNSF). Retired as director of the BNSF locomotive shop in Barstow in 1995.
• Some of the projects established during his time in office include: Home Depot, the Barstow Enterprise Zone, the Skilled Nursing Facility at the Veterans Home of California in Barstow (reopened June 2008), a 65,000 square-foot addition at the Tanger Outlet Center, several hotel buildings, and the city’s LNG/CNG facility.
• Projects currently in progress include: a 1 million-square-foot Wal-Mart distribution center, 16.5 million square feet of new warehousing at the Barstow Industrial Park in the Lenwood Area, a destination resort and casino project, Lenwood grade separation, new hotels, Love’s Truck Stop and several new housing tracts.