LEWIS CHASE INTERVIEW
Narrator: Lewis Chase
Interviewers: Rex Wilson, Rick Monroe and Suzanne Choney (staff writers for the Carlsbad Journal)
Interview date: January 8, 1976
Transcriber: Jan Patrick Mongoven
Location: Carlsbad Journal office (2906 Carlsbad Blvd., Carlsbad, CA)

INTERVIEWER: To open it up, you’re now seeking a second four-year term. What do you feel
gives you—is the main emphasis that you want to profess for the next term,
should you be elected?
CHASE: Well, I think really the—the prime thing that I personally am concerned with is,
we’re very fortunate in having Paul Bussey as our city manager. Paul has been
here now for almost three years. And during that period of time he had problem
A: moving in and picking up an existing organization; problem B: winning their
confidence and at the same time getting his feet on the ground in the area,
understanding what the problems in—in what was happening here; and C: he had
to put a new organization together. Not necessarily new people but new methods,
new philosophy, new programs.
I feel that we’re just on the verge of accomplishing that kind of thing, wherein
the staff is working as a team as opposed to individual units. The prime—
probably the prime reason that I determined I was going to run again was because
I felt that, to accomplish this, the continuity at this point and time was very
critical. And I will be endeavoring, as hard as I know how, to assist that kind of
a—of an organization. Not the restructuring at all, but the fine tuning in getting
this kind of a—well, a team machine operating.
INTERVIEWER: What, in your view, would this mean to the individual resident—the individual
taxpayer—with this fine machine?
CHASE: Well, the first thing I—I have been very much concerned always about the fact
that, when an individual walks into city hall—any city hall, any given city hall—

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CHASE: certainly it isn’t the public that goes in there, it’s a person. And I have many,
many times seen that person treated as a person, as opposed to being the public
and a citizen. And, by that, I am not casting any stones at anybody. It’s a
bureaucratic process. It’s the way it happens. However, the thing that I feel is
very root in the organization of any city hall is the philosophy that whoever
walks in that door is a citizen—is the public. He’s not a guy, or a gal, and should
be treated that way. And he represents—even though he’s only one—I feel he
represents the public, the community. And I don’t think that a bureaucratic,
fallen-in-a-category approach to any one of those persons is a popular way to fly.
And I think that that’s the kind of thing that our community can benefit from,
because I have a very strong feeling that that is Mr. Bussey’s basic philosophy.
That we, the public servants, are there to serve the public, and the public includes
everyone. I guess that kind of is how I feel about it.
There are other benefits, Rex, there are—this fine-tuning thing—what we’re
finally seeing almost happen right now is a capital improvements program. This
is something that I’m appalled of the fact we haven’t had. You know, we’re a 23-
—24-year-old city. During that period of time, I know there have been a couple
of capital improvement programs—so called. But the very fact that it isn’t here—
and one, in my view, of the most desperately needed tools for any city or
business—I just have never been able to accept this. And this kind of an
organization has approached it, is going to approach it, is going to make sure it is
confirmed and brought to date at all times.
The interrelationship between department, department, department—if they’re
working at this thing, and all of them understand that they are part of a team—
and I mean really feel that way—all it can do is benefit the whole community.
And that’s the kind of thing that I envision over this next period of time.
INTERVIEWER: Just as a political-type thing—as to the election itself—what do you think some of
the major issues will be?
CHASE: Well, I think that we pretty much felt what the real basic thing is, in my view.
And I think it’s, you know, how fast do we grow? How much do we grow? Or
how do we approach the growth problem. I think that’s really what the basic

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CHASE: issues are gonna be. As I think we’re aware there are some stated candidates not
saying directly, “I want to stop growth,” but skirting around it to the extent that I
don’t think there’s any doubt about what they’re talking about. I think that’s
going to be an issue. I am very hopeful that the refinery will not be an issue this
time around. Now it may be that I am, you know, I would be way off base. The
gas and electric company gave us to understand that they were not gonna pursue
this thing for several years—the refinery itself—and instead were going to divert
their attention and efforts to the industrial park.
INTERVIEWER: How do you—going on this topic, or issue of growth, then—how do you—how
should Carlsbad, in your view, approach the growth issue in the next four years?
CHASE: I think very similarly to what we have approached up to date. I think if you look
back carefully—at the last four years particularly—there has been growth here.
There have been restrictions and conditions on how that growth occurred and
how it was developed.
I think the—there has been a very healthy industrial growth during that period. I
think that under the conditions that were imposed upon all cities in the state of
California in the last three years, four years—through state mandates for general
plan updating, environmental protection ordinances for the many, many things
that were mandated by the state which, in fact, really took so much time and so
much effort to go to the things that were, if you will, not a community thing as
much as a state-wide thing—that our planning, our planning ahead, in fact,
probably suffered.
I, at the same time, have some questions. How far ahead do you plan
successfully? The—what I see happening to this area would be the same thing
that I have always seen, and that’s forever. That this is probably one of the more
desirable places in the world to live. Being that kind of a place, there is just
absolutely no way you can keep people from wanting to live here and from
attempting to live here. And, therefore, it really is, in my view, necessary that we
accept that fact and try to cope with it as best we can. Of course, that coping is
through planning.

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CHASE: But again, I think that looking back—and if you look at the records you will find
that we’ve had a lot of approvals for subdivisions and for master-planned
communities and so forth, not all of which have even happened. Simply because
only so much can happen in a given area during a given period of time. There are
only “X” number of people to produce the construction that is necessary, and to
produce the financing that is necessary, and to purchase—most important—the
finished product. And anybody who is the least bit aware of economics at all is
gonna be very careful about how many dollars he puts into anything. Any kind of
a business, including construction—development. If you can’t get it back out, or
if you can’t get it out in a proper manner to make a profit, which is what our free-
enterprise system is all about. And I think that, of itself, our—our really
rampant—and I’ve heard this word many times—growth has not occurred and
won’t occur.
INTERVIEWER: You think, in other words, that the—what some people view as a trend toward a
Los Angeles type of growth won’t come here, because there’ll be natural
mitigating circumstances that will keep it that way?
CHASE: What—what is Los Angeles-type growth, Rex? Los Angeles-type growth is a lot
of people. I think we’re gonna have a lot of people in Carlsbad. And I think that
any of the census estimates, the population estimates from any of the agencies
that are involved—CPO, county, state of California, wherever you wanna look—
you’ll see that, I believe, we’re scheduled for some seventy or eighty thousand in
1980-85. Somewhere in that area—this area. And I can’t tell you, right off the
top of my head, exactly what Carlsbad’s population is scheduled for.
So, your question is, “like Los Angeles.” Well, in Los Angeles what happened, I
feel, is that the only place to accommodate those people—who once again were
coming to one of the nicest places in the whole country to live—was to go out.
And that’s what they did. I think that, perhaps up there—and Orange County is
one of the bad words that everybody uses—I think, perhaps, not enough thought
was given to how fast it was gonna happen. Okay? We had a situation there
where—that is much different than ours in that, where they were getting—if my
memory tells me—a thousand people to fifteen hundred people per day coming
into that community. There had to be a place to take care of them. It had to

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CHASE: happen fast. There were a lot of people to draw from to produce what was
needed. What was needed, understand? And it was done. And it wasn’t done
under as—as planned or perhaps as skillful a basis as we now have tools to work
with.
INTERVIEWER: And you don’t think that in view more—I would suppose it’d be more directed at
developer Lewis Chase than vice-mayor Lewis Chase—you don’t think that
construction firms are doing what is referred now—often nowadays—they’re just
trying to exploit the land at the expense of the public.
CHASE: [chuckles] Unfortunately. I have never felt that. I really have never felt that. I—
once again, I go back to the fact that we are a natural—probably as natural a
place as I know of—place, wherein development of homes is advantageous to
community, to developer, and to potential purchaser. You gotta have a place to
come and buy. And I—I do not put a rubber stamp of approval on every
development that’s taken place in this town. But I have said this in council
meetings a hundred times, probably.
One of the reasons that a lot of people have come to this town, is because of the
way it was developed in its earl—well, way back. And I don’t mean 50 years
ago, I mean 30 years ago, 25 years ago. Developers used the land to develop
tracts, build businesses, build office buildings—what we have here. At that time,
they did it without any environmental impact reports, they did it without any staff
guidance, they did it without design-review boards, they did it without anything,
except the—I think two things, in ninety-nine and nine-tenths of the cases.
Number one, pride in what they produced. Number two, need for such an item in
the community. Number three, to make a buck. To make a legitimate profit, the
same way that the butcher does. And the same way that newspaper people do.
And the same way that the schoolteacher does and the painter. And they’ve done
a—really a terrific job, in my view. And again, there is one-tenth of the—of the
construction and development that the doing—that I totally disagree with. And a
lot of it that I would not do myself. But again, this is supposedly a free country.
Everybody has the right, if they have that piece of property, I think, to do pretty
much with it what they would like to do, as long as it's not harmful to neighbors
and community.

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INTERVIEWER: Since much of the city council is business, or to do with it, do you think there’s a
need for someone with your type of experience in development or real estate?
CHASE: I think it’s very advantageous, Rick. I, on many, many occasions, I—only
because of having been there—am able to assist the other council people in
maybe understanding a problem that they wouldn’t understand as thoroughly,
perhaps. I feel that I—that I think somebody like me is advantageous to a city
council.
INTERVIEWER: Just [unclear]—believe it or not, we’re almost gone twenty minutes now. [LC
chuckles] Might—we’d like to—just mention some issues that have—that are
here and are coming up, and if we could just get some brief responses to your
[unclear] philosophy. And start off first with downtown redevelopment.
CHASE: Philosophy. Something I have felt we’ve needed for a long, long time, and I
continue to feel so. I am—am concerned we go off—do not go off half-cocked. I
think there’s a—in order to successfully accomplish what I think everybody’s
aim really is, it’s a tremendously large project.
INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by half-cocked?
CHASE: Well, I would hate for us to start into this thing, without having a pretty good
idea of where we’re trying to get. And to try to explain that—I don’t think we
can take two blocks of downtown and say that’s a redevelopment of a district and
accomplish the end result we have to accomplish. And I can’t tell you what the
number of blocks is gonna be. But we have to—we have to think, I feel much—
think much bigger than we’re thinking right now, in what we’re trying to
accomplish to make it a successful program.
INTERVIEWER: What about the Encina water pollution facility and their expansion?
CHASE: Number one, the state water resource board has mandated that it be upgraded.
The upgrading that is required is—is a now thing. It’s not a maybe, it’s a now. A
program is already underway, as I’m sure you’re aware, to accomplish that. And,

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CHASE: in determining how to accomplish that mandate, it was the view of all the
agencies that we also should consider at that time enlargement along with it. So
that, if you will—and I’m gonna use some dollars here, but they’re not accurate
dollars—if it costs us two thousand dollars to upgrade to meet the standards we
have to meet, by adding another thousand dollars, you know, in proper
proportion—by adding another hundred dollars to it, we can enlarge it. Then it’s
a—it’s a good business move. It’s a good progressive move for all of the
community. That’s the kind of a situation we’re in. That’s what we’re trying to
accomplish. I am for it.
INTERVIEWER: The coastal commission.
CHASE: Coastal commission, in my view, has failed very miserably in what they
attempted to do. I think the majority of the people who have anything at all to do
with it are very disappointed in the results. I think they’ve gone way beyond what
anybody anticipated. And I think they have very badly hurt the large sections of
the economy of the whole of California. And, in fact, in my view, not
accomplished that end result properly at this point. I’m very hopeful that the
governing powers will be drastically reduced, when it gets to the legislature—
when it comes out of the legislature.
INTERVIEWER: Paramedic program?
CHASE: I don’t know about it, Rick, I really don’t know about it. I—if we—if it really
is—is needed, then I think we should have it in the Tri-City Hospital district,
which is something I suggested a while back. And I think they are the ones to
really study the need, based on a district-wide operation as opposed to the city-
wide.
INTERVIEWER: And ways of funding it. Do you think that—
CHASE: That’s the reason. That’s exactly the reason. Because I think that Carlsbad
district—San Marcos, any of our little communities—are gonna be hard-pressed
to—to keep up with a med—a paramedic program once it’s started. When you

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CHASE: get in it—there’s a lot of funds available to get in it. But how do you maintain it
and get your nine, ten, twelve trained paramedics? Another department, you
know. Just—a district can do it. We have a taxing base that will allow it.
INTERVIEWER: City swimming pool.
CHASE: City swimming pool. [chuckles] I really was not in favor of the swimming pool
from the word go. However, in a straw vote from the population, said by
majority, they want it. Because of that I—I have tried to get the thing brought out
to where we could do something with it, where we could really tie into it and get
it accomplished. We have bogged down, because of properties, on three separate
occasions. And—and I think we’re perhaps bogged down again. However, it is
on the docket, as you know, tonight. And I will be presenting it—proposing [the
word about?] the pool—so that we can accomplish it. I think that we were wrong
in not accomplishing the actual fact of the pool.
INTERVIEWER: The civic auditorium or some other type of meeting place like that.
CHASE: I’m not sure we’re really ready for it. There is a great deal of feeling in the
community we are. My personal view, I don’t know. We have purchased—or are
in the throes of purchasing—the [same type you saw?] for probably that purpose.
To provide such a—an auditorium—a place to do this kind of thing.
INTERVIEWER: Here it comes—the Macario Independent Refinery.
CHASE: My position on it? Well, I don’t think it’s changed one bit. Honestly, Rex. I—I
still do not feel that we have the proper information to make a judgement.
INTERVIEWER: “We” now, being the city?
CHASE: “We” being the council.
INTERVIEWER: Council.

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CHASE: And I do feel very strongly that’s where the decision will be made, is at the
council level. And the—prior to making that decision, I think we need to be fed
an awful lot more information than we have now. And it is—is not available.
Lots of things are available.
But the ultimate things that bother me are how many tankers is this gonna [assist
need?] I’m talking about road tankers. I’m talking about truck-trailer
combinations—if any. If so, where are they gonna go? How often are they gonna
run? What are they gonna disturb? What streets are they gonna break down?
I’m—I want to know for sure, in some manner, that we can say, “Hey, we don’t
want a paint factory next door to use the residue of a refinery.” [Thankfully?],
some things are happening to solve some of those things. This industrial park all
of a sudden starts pretty hard to speak to limiting the activities that are gonna be
allowed at a refinery.
But it doesn’t solve the problem. It doesn’t set it down as close in concrete as I
would like to see it. There are—are a number of things. I want to know—I have a
very strong feeling that, with today’s governmental structure and concern about
the environment, you probably have some tools that, if a refinery were to go in
and it were to start smoking, that we could shut it down. But I like to know
that—like to know for sure. So, I’m—I’m not prepared to say I am for it, or
against it. If I were leaning, I would probably be leaning towards it, until I can
assure myself that we can’t put proper controls on it.
INTERVIEWER: [inaudible] [Ed. note: from the published interview in the Carlsbad Journal,
“What do you see as Carlsbad in 1980, the time when the term you seek
reelection to expires again?”]
CHASE: Boy, that’s—that’s kind of a tough one, Suzanne. What—what I think is going to
happen is the community as a whole is going to continue to expand, you know.
As I said, I—we have population projections for that period of time. Up to now,
our projections in the last five years have fallen behind. And, in the last two years
especially, they have fallen behind. I think we’re gonna probably see, in the next
four years, a community of probably thirty-five, forty—forty thousand people, in
my view, maximum. I think that we’re going to, of course, have some excellent

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CHASE: industries during that time. Which will provide, for a change, jobs for our young
people. I’m very much concerned about how we’re gonna solve our housing
[unclear] for our young people—a problem for our young people. It’s, as you
know, almost impossible to buy a house for any young couple today, or any
young family today. And I am very hopeful that we will achieve some kind of
answer to that. I—I am not optimistic, but I am very hopeful. And I think our—
we’re gonna have a—as I feel we are getting to the point now—a really well-
balanced community that will allow some industry to help us as individuals and
our tax loads. And we’ll still make enough income to keep the city very viable
and in operating the services that we are operating and improve them.
[END OF CASETTE TAPE 1, SIDE 1]
INTERVIEWER: Do you think Carlsbad should have [made?] a city charter?
CHASE: I—I just have not been in favor of a charter city. But I—I—wanna say I have
honestly tried to be open-minded about this thing. My concern is, there are a lot
of ways to go at a charter. My way of going at a charter is not a one-sheet charter,
as has been proposed on several occasions. But, in fact, a charter that says it like
it is and picks up all of our codes and ordinances and does it properly and updates
them. You know, so that we’re not dealing back in 1962, which we are in a lot of
cases. And it—what my total concern about it is, the benefit we would gain from
having a charter city is negligible, except in two or three areas, because, again, of
the state laws and the state mandates of today. Whereas to get to that point—to
get those few benefits and those negligible benefits—I feel that we’re gonna have
to spend a whole bunch of money. There have been, of course, arguments
proposed that that is not necessary. Once again, in my mind, in order to
accomplish properly the chartering of the city, we need to go a whole lot deeper
than writing a sheet and saying, “We are now chartered, and we’re gonna use our
old rules.” You know, it just doesn’t suffice to me.
INTERVIEWER: It has been said elsewhere that your basic philosophies tend to run a hundred
and eighty degrees from those of Carlsbad Community Cause. Do you—do your
philosophies basically do that?

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CHASE: I don’t think so. Now, I don’t know, but I think it’s the method we get to the end
result that—where, perhaps, we are differ—different. I think what Carlsbad
Community Cause wants is a—is an excellent community to live in, to work in,
to be brought up in, to bring children up in. I happen to have been here for 51
years. And I have never had anything but that kind of a thought in mind. So,
we’re trying to get to the same point.
I think we differ a whole lot in how it’s possible to get there. I think that, in order
to achieve this thing, it’s just like all the rest of our lives, you know. When the
rent comes due, you have to pay it or you have to move out. There has to be
money enough to make these kind of things happen. If we are not careful how we
do things, the whole thing is lost for lack of the financial ability to do it.
I think I am not—and I’m gonna say it this bluntly—I think I’m not as selfish
about our community as, perhaps, those people who have formed the Community
Cause. I said it earlier, and I say it again. We probably live in one of the nicest
places in the world. And I don’t think that it’s either right, proper, or can be done
to put a wall around us and say, “Hey, nobody will—nobody else can move in
here. This is ours, and you guys go somewhere else and find it.” And I don’t
think this can be done, and I don’t think that we should consider it. And I think
that I’ve—I’ve heard some statements which don’t say it that way. “Hey, I don’t
want anybody else in here.” Except there is no other way to interpret those
statements. And so, I think that’s where we differ primarily.
INTERVIEWER: Let me add, you’ve—your voting record in the past as a council member has—
including just Tuesday night—has indicated a reluctance for the city to
participate in human resources—social programs here locally. Why is that?
CHASE: Several reasons. First reason, again, gets back to what I was mentioning a
moment ago—takes money. [chuckles] Takes money, and where does the money
come from? Well, please remember that we pay some eleven dollars—in fact, our
tax assessment, of which a dollar ninety-five comes to the city of Carlsbad—the
balance of that money goes to several places. School district, college district,
hospital district and the county. A great amount of it goes to the county. And
especially a great amount, when it’s spread throughout the county. Secondly,

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CHASE: remember that every year—comes about April fifteenth—we pay income tax.
And that goes to the federal government, as well as to the state government. The
purpose of those things, in my view, is to accomplish state-wide, county-wide,
United States-wide services for—that can’t be provided another way. I—I am
very jealous of the fact that our tax dollars must be used, I think, to maintain the
safety and the welfare [chuckles]—
INTERVIEWER: —there’s that word!
CHASE: —in a lot of different areas than pure out-and-out welfare and well-being of our
community. And there just are not enough dollars to do this. And I have resisted
it greatly. And let me give you kind of a—and I’ll try to be very brief. Senior
citizens, I love ’em. I think we should do everything we can for them. Except,
once we start deeply into a senior citizens program—or even a little bit into it,
which we already have done—how do we say no to the nutrition program, even
though we don’t have the money to do it? We have said, “Yes, we’re gonna give
you $13,000,” I think, “to hire a director to kind of coordinate things and to staff
and to stock your place of business and so forth.” Now, we’re in. How do we say,
“No, we can’t participate in your nutrition program. No, we can’t participate in
your door-to-door food service. No, we can’t participate in something else—
something else—something else.” I don’t know how you say no, after you’ve
once said yes. And I, having seen it happen so many times in different areas and
in different subjects, I just, I know that’s what’s gonna happen. And, therefore, I
guess I’m overly sensitive about it—making that first step.
Where can we start, as a for instance? We have probably in this town—my
personal guesstimate—we probably have 200, 250 very needy families. In
addition to that we probably have at least that many very, very needy senior
citizens, who are getting by and that’s all. I don’t know how we could possibly
take on programs that are—out of necessity—have to incorporate health care,
food—on down the line—housing for these people. Understand we have taken a
very large step in our housing authority. And we do have—as you know, we’re
the only one beside the city of San Diego. And we are involved in this—social
services.

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INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you about your belief, then, that you as a council member who
sits as a member of the housing authority, that your philosophy on city-involved
social programs are in—run contrary to your role as a housing authority board
member?
CHASE: Well—
INTERVIEWER: Or do you think maybe this is good?
CHASE: Perhaps it is good, Rex. You understand the housing authority was formulated
before I was elected to council. If, probably, I had been on the council at the
time—in fact, I did approach it, not on the council. But it was done. And,
therefore, I think I am obligated to assist and operate in it as efficiently and as
thoroughly as it’s possible to do. And I think I do that. I hope I do that. [both
chuckle]
INTERVIEWER: One thing, uh—
[END OF CASETTE TAPE 1, SIDE 2]
END OF INTERVIEW