Mailbag: Reflecting on work with the late Rupee

The notice of Don Rupee’s passing took me back to our work together on a drivers safety program for the city of Burbank in the late 1950s. Don was on loan from the Police Department, and I was the administrative assistant in the city manager’s three-man office from 1954 to 1961. Using results of vision and reaction-time tests, Don could counsel employees on the importance of safe driving.

The city manager, Harmon R. Bennett, had assigned me to implement a general accident prevention program to counter rising insurance costs, and driver safety was one part as we also bought safety equipment and initiated safety training for employees and supervisors.

There was a refreshing air of trying new things under the impetus of a reform City Council, which was vigorously striving to restore citizen confidence in their local government after the disastrous scandals of racketeering, bribery and other evils that had brought national shame to Burbank. Getting rid of the failed council members, bringing in new top managers and thorough revamping of several departments showed results.

The spirit of the movement resulted in the huge infrastructure endeavor, the Capital Improvement Program, with the building of bridges at Olive, Magnolia and Burbank, new police and fire headquarters, a new main library, improvements at McCambridge Park and others.

I played a small part in the reforms, making important “study and report” assignments, including transferring of the health sanitation staff to Los Angeles County, removing department heads from civil service, and others, as well as handling public information, budget requests and personnel matters.

It was an exciting time in city government, made more productive through the efforts of co-workers such as Don Rupee.

PAUL H. WANGSNESS

Burbank

Is poor parking hurting local businesses?

I strongly encourage the City Council to revisit charging for parking in the downtown shopping district as a way to earn revenue to offset the budget shortfall.

By now, I’m sure that Chamber of Commerce members who have read that sentence are already writing their letters to the Leader for next week’s edition, sounding the alarm that charging for parking will stifle business, which would be a horrible thing to do in this economy.