[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 11] [House] [Pages 16340-16342] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM CRAVEN (1921-1999) ______ HON. RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM of california in the house of representatives Thursday, July 15, 1999 Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of William A. ``Bill'' Craven: a husband and father, a public servant, a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States, and a leading citizen of San Diego County, California, who has passed away. Bill Craven was a courageous political leader who represented the citizens of San Diego County for more than a quarter century. Many of us will always remember Bill as a strong leader with a tremendous commitment to public service. During his storied life he served as a U.S. Marine, San Diego County Supervisor, California State Assemblyman, Oceanside Planning Commissioner, the City Manager for San Marcos and the Chief Assistant to a County Supervisor. However, it is his many accomplishments as a California State Senator that will ensure his legacy. The crown jewel of those accomplishments was the successful establishment of California State University San Marcos. I submit for the Record a column from the San Diego Union Tribune and both an article and editorial from the North County Times, which further highlight the life of this great man. To be loved by friends and admired by opponents and to serve the people is the goal of all great leaders; it is a goal that Bill admirably attained. Speaking for all the people of California's 51st Congressional District, my heart goes out to Bill's wife, Mimi, and his entire family upon their loss. I am honored to have been Bill's friend. Let the permanent Record of the Congress of the United States show that Bill Craven was a tireless advocate for his constituents, and a friend of America. [From the San Diego Union Tribune, July 13, 1999] William A. Craven (1921-1999)--Cal State San Marcos Is a Lasting Legacy (By Gerry Braun and Jeff McDonald) William A. ``Bill'' Craven, the courtly North County legislator who was known for his candor and independence and for delivering a state university to the heart of his district, is dead at 78. Craven, a heavy smoker for much of his life, suffered from congestive heart failure and complications of diabetes, a family member said. He died Sunday morning at the Villas de Carlsbad Health Center. An old-school politician equipped with charm and a long memory for names and local problems, Craven represented the North County for a quarter of a century, from his election to the Board of Supervisors until term limits and failing health forced him from the state Senate last year. He was an Oceanside planning commissioner, the city manager of San Marcos and a county supervisor's chief assistant before being elected a supervisor in his own right in 1970. The lifelong Republican moved up to the state Assembly in 1973, and then to the state Senate in 1978, without losing a race or facing serious competition. In the Legislature, colleagues looked to the longtime Oceanside resident for his expertise in such unglamorous policy arenas as local government funding and mobile-home park regulation. Yet he also wielded considerable clout through his longtime seat on the powerful Senate Rules Committee and his ability to offset his party's minority status by cultivating personal relationships with his colleagues. In his latter years, Craven was one of a dwindling species in Sacramento--a moderate Republican who prided himself on his bipartisanship and his friendships with Democratic leaders such as Willie Brown, Leo McCarthy, Bill Lockyer and David Roberti, the latter a longtime Senate president pro tempore whom Craven affectionately called ``Boss.'' Craven crossed party lines without apology, and many times delivered the final vote needed to send Democratic bills to the governor. ``Before government became the enemy, in the perspective of some, Bill was one who wanted government to work and to solve problems,'' said Lockyer, who served with Craven in both houses of the Legislature and is now California's attorney general. ``He was a man with a devotion to public service and a wonderful, wonderful, giant heart.'' Craven's district underwent explosive growth during his career--he represented nearly 1 million people in parts of three counties in the late 1980s--and he battled to steer state money to its water systems, parks, highways and courtrooms, and to sustain the growth with tax credits for first-time home buyers. Pride in accomplishments He was proud of winning extra funding for Torrey Pines State Reserve; supporting anti-pollution legislation that targeted aerosol cans and vapor-recovery systems on gas pumps; increasing the size of Butterfield Park in San Pasqual; and raising from five to seven the number of judges at the Vista courthouse. But the crown jewel of his legislative career was the creation of Cal State San Marcos, the North County public university that Craven started lobbying for even before he was elected to the Assembly in 1973. The university was finally christened in 1990, and the grand opening capped one of the longest and most ardent drives of Craven's years in Sacramento. In gratitude, one of the main buildings of the growing San Marcos campus was named Craven Hall. A bust of the longtime legislator rests in front and a nearby thoroughfare was named in his honor. ``He had the vision for that university for as long as I've known him, which goes way back, I think 30 years ago,'' said banker Jim Rady, a former Escondido mayor. ``Throughout his career he put the well-being of North County ahead of politics. He [[Page 16341]] was a moderate Republican in times when it was not fashionable, but people who knew him respected him,'' Rady said. ``He was an honest man.'' A man of many talents In his many and varied careers, Craven worked as a newspaperman, a salesman, an ad man and an actor. He was born on June 30, 1921, in Philadelphia and graduated from Villanova, where he earned a degree in economics. Craven enlisted in the Marines during World War II and returned to service when his country came calling at the outbreak of the Korean War. During his second military stint, Craven devised and wrote a Marine Corps radio program that aired weekly over more than 130 stations. By 1951, he had turned to television and produced a weekly program that ran for more than three years. He left the service as a major and a military buff who devoured the books of historian W.E.B. Griffin. The lessons of war stayed with him throughout his public service, as when he opposed a nuclear-freeze proposal in 1982, bluntly explaining, ``I don't trust the Russians. I never have. I probably never will.'' Between the wars, Craven turned to sales and promotion, working for a Kentucky-based company that specialized in leather and binding. After the Korean War, Craven took a sales job with Philco Electronics, roaming the Eastern Seaboard for new clients. It wasn't long, however, before he migrated west, with his young wife, Mimi, to accept a management position at a Los Angeles concessions company that sold various goods to the military. Deep roots Much of that business took Craven south to San Diego County and Camp Pendleton, where he began planting deep roots in the Oceanside community. His interest in writing was sparked by a short stint as a police reporter in his native Pennsylvania--skills that helped Craven launch his own public relations business in the 1950s. He wrote advertising copy, did market research and consulted on merchandising and sales tactics for a variety of clients. His years of public service began with 12 years on the Oceanside Planning Commission and working as an executive assistant to the Board of Supervisors from 1962 to 1969. He also served as the county's first public information officer. He spent four months as the San Marcos city manager before winning election to the Board of Supervisors in 1970, when he was named North County Man of the Year by the Northern San Diego County Associated Chambers of Commerce. But his service on the Board of Supervisors was not without its squabbles. Craven was criticized in 1971 for accepting guest privileges to a local country club, then voting on a rezoning application filed by the company when it came before the Board of Supervisors. He gave up the membership soon thereafter. In 1972, Craven was targeted for recall by a Chula Vista water company owner upset with a redistricting plan pushed by the supervisor. The attempt fizzled when the business owner was unable to muster enough support for the recall drive. Like many county officials before him, Craven also tangled with the San Diego mayor, at that time a rising a powerful Republican named Pete Wilson. As early as 1972, Craven was warning county residents that the regional planning hierarchy favored the city of San Diego over the county. ``We shouldn't have to take a back seat to San Diego,'' he once boomed at a breakfast meeting in Fallbrook, where he criticized the distribution system for regional gas tax revenue. Sacramento bound The supervisor beat out eight other Republicans--and 14 rivals overall--in the 1973 primary election for a vacant Assembly seat. Craven was the top campaign spender--reporting more than $43,000 in expenses, some $2.85 for every vote he received--and carried more than 65 percent of the vote. He served three terms in the Assembly and was one of only two Republican assemblymen to head a legislative committee in the Democrat-controlled lower house--the Local Government Committee. A self-described moderate Republican with ``conservative leanings--especially in fiscal areas,'' he opposed Proposition 13, the landmark tax-slashing initiative approved by California voters. After its passage, he pushed for a state constitutional amendment that would have made it easier for local governments to issue general obligation bonds--a key target of the 1978 measure. Craven pointed to his seniority, and key Rules Committee assignment, in 1981 when he stunned constituents by announcing that he would forsake running for an open congressional seat to remain in the state Senate. ``I've come, with some degree of experience and years, to understand that service here is something that I've become very accustomed to,'' he told supporters at a weekend fund- raiser. csu san marcos By remaining in Sacramento, Craven was able to pull off his crowning legislative achievement--the funding for CSU San Marcos. It is widely considered the product of Craven's finely honed legislative skills. Just last March, Craven donated $250,000 in leftover campaign funds to the university for the establishment of an academic scholarship with just one condition: That it go to ``average'' students with special qualities. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mimi, and three children: sons William Craven Jr. and John Craven, and daughter Tricia Craven Worley. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to Tri- City Medical Center or to the William A. Craven Scholarship Fund at Cal State San Marcos. ____ [From the North County Times, July 13, 1999] North County Statesman Dies at 78 (By Terry Wells) Oceanside.--Former state Sen. William A. Craven, a statesman whose nonpartisan style and flair for oratory led to the founding of Cal State San Marcos, died Sunday after a long battle with diabetes and emphysema. He was 78. Craven, an Oceanside Republican who held the 38th District state senate seat from 1978 to 1998, was fondly remembered Monday as a man who put getting the job done above politics-- sometimes to the consternation of his GOP colleagues. ``He worked both sides of the aisle when he wanted to get something done, and the Democrats respected him as well as the Republicans,'' said Vista Mayor Gloria McClellan, whose long career in city politics parallels Craven's in Sacramento. ``What an intelligent, thoughtful man he was. And very, very effective.'' Born June 30, 1921, in Philadelphia, Craven attended a private high school and graduated from prestigious Villanova University with a bachelor's degree in economics. He then joined the Marines during World War II and was commissioned as a lieutenant. Craven soon found himself landing on the beach at Iwo Jima, one of the most ferocious battles in the Pacific theater. Craven emerged a major, remaining a Marine reserve officer and attaining the rank of brigadier general after being called back to active duty during the Korean War. Years later, an accomplished legislator in Sacramento, Craven chaired an informal social group of legislators who had served in the Marine Corps, the ``Marine Legislative Brigade.'' Craven remembered Craven's successor, state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, said there were a dozen or so brigade members in that group a decade ago, but Morrow himself is now the Legislature's only ex-Marine. It just isn't the same without him, Morrow said. ``Everybody here recognizes him to this day for what he was, a true gentleman who was compassionate in his politics-- and also a real fightin' Marine,'' Morrow said. ``It didn't take me too long to know that you don't replace a Bill Craven. You just carry on.'' Craven and his wife, the former Marion ``Mimi'' L. Wahl, married in April 1944, and made their home in Oceanside, raising three children. While Craven had worked various jobs including one as a leather salesman, he gravitated toward public life. Mimi Craven shared that tendency, and was a fixture at his side during decades of appearances at civic events. Craven learned public administration from the ground up, serving as a staff aide to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors in the 1960s, and briefly as the city manager of San Marcos. Running for office In early 1970, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed Robert Cozens, the county's 5th District supervisor, to be the new director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, and Craven decided to make his play for the empty seat. But the four supervisors deadlocked 2-2 on naming a successor, and Reagan appointed the late Miles W. Kratka to finish out Cozens' term. Undeterred, Craven entered the primary race and gathered more than half the vote in June, avoiding a November runoff. Bill Dominguez, who later served as county Supervisor Craven's chief of staff, said it was no surprise that Craven won in the primary, despite never having held elected office. In 1970, as one of a small handful of aides that served all the county supervisors, Craven ``lived in his car'' while visiting county residents who had called to raise concerns with the board of supervisors. Dominguez said. ``He had a great flair with people, and a great sense of humor;'' Dominguez said. ``Once of his favorite mottos was, `If you can leave them smiling, then you've won the war.' '' The first step Craven's experience at the street level shaped his thinking, Dominguez said, but the former Marine sought and won a state Assembly seat in 1973, halfway through his first term. [[Page 16342]] In 1978, the year of California's property tax revolution, Craven jumped to the state Senate, a seat he held for 20 years. The more collegial environmental of the Senate--where partisan fights are rare by comparison to the rough-and-ready Assembly--suited Craven's gentlemanly style, said Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, R-Carlsbad. ``Republicans will vote for a Democrat to be the Senate leader, and here in the Assembly we don't understand that,'' Kaloogian said. ``He epitomized the image of a state senator. And today, in an era of term limits, there will never again be a Bill Craven.'' Craven specialized in legislation that concerned local governments--a ``true policy wonk in the truest sense of that term,'' Dominguez said. But the senator will be remembered for generations for one accomplishment, according to those who knew him: the founding of Cal State San Marcos in 1992. University legacy It was the first new Cal State campus in decades--for years the idea was only to build a satellite campus of San Diego State University. ``When it happened, it went beyond their wildest dreams and we got a full, four-year institution of our own in North County,'' Dominguez said. Advocates for seniors Craven won respect throughout North County as an advocate for residents of mobile-home parks, many of whom are seniors living on fixed incomes. When those efforts veered into rent control--a taboo topic among most Republicans--Craven didn't flinch. He also made it happen with a series of bills fought by mobile-home park owners. ``His highly developed sense of decency and his intellectual rigor made it possible for him to succeed where others were shuttled aside,'' said veteran GOP political consultant Jack Orr. ``I disagreed with him on a lot of things, including rent control. But I respected him, and so did just about everybody else.'' Mayo Jo Kerlin, who worked for Craven for 25 years, said the senator had a way of attracting and keeping loyal staff members because he didn't put politics at the top of his agenda. Kerlin noted that Craven sponsored bills that created the state's network of freeway call-boxes; laid the groundwork for Coaster light-rail service; and bought habitat at Torrey Pines and in Poway before habitat preservation was in full swing in a rapidly developing state. Craven also played a major role in the 1994 bailout of Orange County, where risky investments created the nation's largest municipal bankruptcy. ``He has touched more people's lives in North County than anyone I know, or I'm likely to know,'' Kerlin said. ``It seems like everywhere I go, I see his fingerprints.'' ____ [From the North County Times, July 14, 1999] A Long Legacy of Good Works An ex-Marine who stormed the beaches at Iwo Jima in his youth, former state Sen. Bill Craven could hold his own in most any fight in the Capitol's halls and cloakrooms, but he made his name in North County and Sacramento as a peacemaker and statesman. Craven, who died Sunday morning at age 78, represented the bulk of North County in the California Senate for 20 years until declining health and term limits forced him to relinquish his seat last year. Many legislators, once they get to Sacramento, lose touch with their home districts and become more focused on statewide or national issues, but Craven never lost his focus on North County. He worked hard to make sure his constituents got the services and goods they paid for through their taxes and fought efforts to shift funding from local governments to state. Most of his causes weren't glamorous--he pushed for tougher anti-pollution regulations and greater investment in highways, parks, courts and habitat protection--but his greatest legacy will always be Cal State San Marcos, who administration building and main road bear his name. He began campaigning for a North County university campus in 1973, five years before he was elected to the Senate. When it finally opened in 1990, it was the first new state university anywhere in the country in more than 20 years. In this day of term limits, we won't see a long record of service like Craven's again, and in this era of bitter partisanship we're unlikely to see his form of statesmanship again. ____________________