Richard Close, an influential figure who for nearly half a century helped define Los Angeles city politics beyond even the Sherman Oaks-based homeowners’ association he helmed, died Monday, Jan. 31, at the age of 77.
Soon after joining the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association in 1977, Close, a real estate lawyer, became its president, going on to transform the organization into a base of political power for San Fernando Valley homeowners and beyond.
The work and successes of the group garnered its members sway over the city’s elected officials, who regularly attend their monthly meetings where they are greeted warmly, but are then just as easily faced with tough questions from the group’s members.
And Close held the ear of editors and reporters at the Valley-focused news publication, the Los Angeles Daily News, for many years, especially as he and the homeowners’s group teamed up with local business community in an ultimately failed effort to secede from Los Angeles.
In the beginning of Close’s tenure at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, he joined with the main proponent, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, to organize support for the still popular, 1978 measure to restrict property tax increases, Proposition 13, and immediately reduced property taxes by 50%
The measure had statewide impact and limited the funds the state had to put toward programs, including education, but had its origins in the Valley’s home-owning voters, among whom it was especially successful.
By the 1990s, Close and the homeowners group, often referred to simply as SOHA, was leading the Valley’s secession movement in tandem with the local business community. The secession movement ultimately failed, due to opposition by other parts of the city, but had gained overwhelming support among voters in the San Fernando Valley.
“Richard Close understood political power in Los Angeles in a way few others did,” said Gabriel Kahn, a USC journalism professor who has written about Close and the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association. “And he wielded it for longer than just about anybody.”
Pointing to his “front-row” vantage point of the Proposition 13 effort, Kahn said that Close “saw his opportunity to build a resilient grass-roots community through his Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association.”
“Because authority is so dispersed in Los Angeles, he knew that an organization with deep local roots could have an outsized voice,” Kahn said.
L.A.’s most powerful officials called on the group at its meetings, although in recent years, as the city faced a housing affordability and homelessness crisis, the slow-growth politics of the group has faded in strength, reflected in some respects by the failure of the 2017 Measure S, the most recent effort in L.A. city to put a brake on development.
Kahn observed that in recent years the group “became the megaphone for maintaining a low-density Los Angeles, which is a luxury this region can no longer afford.”
Tom Hogen-Esch, the chair of political science at Cal State Northridge, said Close stood at “the vanguard of a social movement that emerges from homeowners associations during the 1960s and ’70s.”
“And the primary goal of these homeowners associations, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, was to maintain the suburban character of the Valley’s neighborhoods and protect it from what they saw as an assault of urbanization brought about by developers connected to the downtown power structure.”
Close and SOHA tapped into a feeling that Valley residents were cut off from downtown political leaders, and did not receive a fair share of city services.
“That’s always been one of the big issues in the San Fernando Valley is the sense that the Valley isn’t part of the power structure in the same way that probably the Westside is,” Hogen-Esch said.
The news of Close’s death drew reactions from elected officials such as City Attorney Mike Feuer, a former westside City Councilman, who was among the first to extend his condolences.
Pointing to Close as among “the city’s most dedicated community leaders,” he described the association president as an “effective, engaged and forceful advocate, not only for his community of Sherman Oaks, but for enhancing neighborhood quality of life throughout Los Angeles.”
Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg described Close as a friend of more than four decades, and said Close’s death is a “horrible loss for all of us that are committed to the Valley.”
SOHA’s calling cards often were its newsletters, which were sent out consistently bearing detailed news, calls-to-action and other information about Los Angeles city policies, development and transportation projects, redistricting updates and state legislation.
And while their politics put them at the center of sometimes barbed and polarizing debates, their meetings were catered by a local, Valley-based restaurant or eatery, and its atmosphere was intimate and welcoming.
“I’ve been a member (of SOHA) for over 37 years,” Hertzberg said. “I get those little mailers in the mail, so I remember I used to go before I was elected and you know, it was just a place where people showed up and where you could listen to what was going on into the issues of the day.”
Close’s family released a statement Monday saying that they were “blessed to enjoy so many wonderful years with a loving husband, father, and grandfather.”
“Through his passion for travel, he showed us the world and taught us how to experience and enjoy life to the fullest,” the family said. “While he was fully committed to his community and clients, he always made it clear through his words and actions that his family came first and we are going to deeply miss his love, kindness, and sense of humor.”
In Close’s day job as a real estate lawyer, he was a nationally recognized expert on his areas of focus, which included land-use entitlements, administrative and regulatory law, project development and financing, manufactured housing communities, and governmental relations and advocacy.
In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be sent to the UCLA Extensivist Program.
Close is survived by his wife Sally, two adult children, Matthew Close and Dr. Abby Close Emdur, and four grandchildren.
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