Patrick Murphy is running for Glendale City Council with a clear message: the city is on a dangerous path, and local control is disappearing. A retired entrepreneur with experience in real estate development, Murphy emerged from grassroots activism around a controversial wash project to become a vocal critic of the city council’s approach to housing, development, and public engagement. His campaign centers on various issues, including what he views as the threat posed by SB79 and the Bus Rapid Transit project, a bloated, wasteful city budget and a city government that talks at residents rather than listening to them. Murphy comes to politics with 40 years in real estate and construction, specializing in the repositioning of distressed retail properties. That expertise shapes his view of the city’s financial management. He emphasizes both his discipline and his commitment to staying local, as a political newcomer frustrated with the status quo, armed with private-sector expertise and grassroots support. Whether that’s enough to shift Glendale’s direction remains to be seen. What’s clear from this conversation is that he’s not interested in Sacramento or Washington; his focus is entirely on his city.

Who Is Patrick Murphy?

“I’m the youngest of 9 children,” says Murphy. “I grew up in New York. Dad was with the NYPD for 29 years and retired as a lieutenant. I like to say that I grew up in a paramilitary environment. I’m disciplined, very disciplined. I’m committed to Glendale, and I have no political agenda beyond Glendale. I won’t go to Sacramento. Washington is completely out of the picture, and I don’t want a county seat. All I want to do is help make Glendale better. That’s all I want to do, and I’ll work hard.”

On why he decided to run, Murphy describes a gradual shift from skepticism to conviction.

“At first, I was like, yeah, no, thank you very much. I am not a politician. I don’t want to do this. I want to travel. I want to retire. I want to travel with my wife, and then I thought, you know what? It’s a mess. This is my way of giving back. After a successful career, I feel I can give back to the people. And this is my way of doing it.”

Your thoughts on SB79 and the proposed BRT line?

SB79, in conjunction with the Bus Rapid Transit line, is an existential threat to our entire city. The proposed BRT line runs from North Hollywood to Pasadena. In Glendale, there are 21 stops on this BRT line, and most are on a dedicated bus-only lane. Within ninety-five feet of one of those stops along Glen Oaks, developers can build up to nine stories, within a quarter mile, seven stories within a half mile, five stories within a quarter mile—all of these with no parking requirements.

Kenneth Village is a two-block retail segment within a residential community. Below Kenneth are 100-year-old homes, little bungalows, 1,100 to 1,500 square feet. But the streets are filled with parked cars. Because SB79 removes local zoning, these neighborhoods are at real risk of having a seven or five-story building next to their single-family residence, which would be catastrophic for the neighborhood, not only for its character but also from a density standpoint, from a congestion standpoint. It’s just a real threat.

Your position on environmental review and government accountability?

Burbank sent a letter to Metro requesting a supplemental environmental review of the entire project. It’s a reasonable request, most definitely a reasonable request. The environmental attorneys inside Metro said no to doing a supplemental EIR. Now, to me, that’s the fox guarding the henhouse. How can you have internal environmental lawyers for Metro saying we don’t need this? The Glendale city council recused two council members—Council Member Vartan Gharpetian and Council Member Ardy Kassakhian, who is now the mayor. They recused them because Kassakhian lives in a little area called Pelanconi, which is below Glenoaks Blvd., and the area I described earlier is above Glenoaks. He lives close to the proposed BRT. And Mister Gharapetian has a client on Central Avenue.

I dispute the need for their recusals because the Fair Political Practices Commission and the state of California have an exception: if 25 percent or more of the class that is affected by any law or action that’s to be taken (25 percent or more of the people inside the agency, meaning inside the city, are affected), then the recusals don’t apply. This is going to affect the entire city. So I don’t know why the city attorney required that they remove themselves from this vote to send a letter, just like Burbank did, to the BRT and Metro, objecting to their refusal to conduct a supplemental environmental review.

The housing crisis narrative?

We have an affordable housing crisis. We don’t have a numbers crisis. In California, there are approximately 15 million housing units. There are over one million vacant units. That’s about 7 percent. Locally in Glendale, the numbers are about the same. Luxury rentals are up in the high single digits. Normal rentals are down at 6 or 7 percent. So we don’t have a numbers crisis; we have an affordability issue.

When the state pushes its narrative to take away local control, that’s a problem. They need to be challenged. We need to push back. Five cities in Southern California fought SB9 and SB10. They won in the lower court. Once they won, the state appealed it. And during the appellate process, the legislature changed the law to overcome the judgment in the local courts. That’s dirty. So it has to change. We need balance in Sacramento, and we haven’t had it for a very long time.

Your thoughts on the Glendale City budget and fiscal responsibility?

In 2020, the Glendale City budget was $840 million. In 2024, it went to $1.3 billion. That’s a 55 percent increase. When inflation during that same period was 21 percent. So we’re 34 points above inflation.

So it’s not an inflationary issue. It’s not a pension problem, as some council members like to say. Pension payments to CalPERS, the state pension fund, grew annually during those four years and accounted for less than 10% of the total $450 million budget increase.

What would I cut? There is a budget line item for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026, for a 28 percent increase in overtime. Just overtime. A 28 percent increase, which means we’re spending over $12 million in overtime. Who budgets that big an increase in overtime? What business does that? If you make widgets and have orders coming in, you know you’ll need to budget for overtime. I get that. But 28 percent?

Electrical workers who fix electrical lines last year received double their base pay in overtime. The whole package for each of them, including their payments to the pension fund CalPERS and their medical benefits, totaled over half a million dollars each. I’m literally and figuratively spending a lot of time on this issue.

Then there are vanity projects. A bicycle lane was installed on North Brand Boulevard above the 134 Freeway. It was 6 miles long; they took out two lanes of traffic to put in two protected bicycle lanes. The fire chief of the fire station on the north side of this particular 6-mile lane reported, “This is dangerous for us. Our response times are slowing. We can’t get out of the station.”

The city spent $1.8 million on this and pulled it out after 6 months. Part of the $1.8 million included $527,000 to remove it over a period of four days. So that’s over $ 125,000 per day they’re spending to lift K rails and repaint the street.

The city council’s interactions with residents?

People are tired of being told what they need instead of being asked what they want. The Glendale City Council, like California, is pushing things down on our community without notifying us. The public outreach is miserable.

Can you give an example?

A draft land use element came before the council at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. They make a lot of major decisions in the middle of the afternoon, and there were two people in chambers. I was one, and a woman was there. There were three people on the telephone. So there were five people in a public hearing in a city with a population approaching 190,000.

At public meetings and city council meetings, the staff and consultants give presentations as part of a project. The camera faces them so people at home can see their facial expressions. However, if you are a member of the public commenting on an agenda item or during oral communications, the camera only shows the back of your head. The reason they did it is that they did not want testimonies in front of the council showing up on social media. That’s a violation of our First Amendment.

How are you preparing for council service?

I’m spending hours and hours with the director of finance and with the assistant city manager in face-to-face meetings. I’m also talking with a strong advocate for government financial oversight. He’s been looking at cities for twenty-plus years. He knows his stuff. So what I’m doing is I’m listening to people. I’m learning, and as I dig further, I learn more. My business, which I’m retiring from after 41 years, is the repositioning of distressed retail properties, primarily taking properties, retail shopping centers that were suffering, and turning them around.

What drives your interest in public service?

I’ve spent my career in real estate development and economic revitalization. I understand how decisions at the city council level affect businesses, residents, and the community’s overall character. SB79 and its implementation threaten local control, and I can’t stand by and watch without speaking up. I believe cities should have the right to make decisions about their own futures, not have those decisions mandated by the state without adequate environmental review or community input.

I’m accessible. I’m willing to engage with the community. I’ve studied the city’s finances and major policy issues, including SB79 and BRT, and I bring real-world experience in managing complex projects and budgets. The challenges facing Glendale are significant, but they’re solvable if we have council members who are willing to do the work, challenge Sacramento when necessary, and put the needs of our residents and neighborhoods first.

What’s the importance of local news in your community?

I used to live in Burbank and then came here. I did some local news, but I gotta tell you, I do a lot more local news since I’ve lived in Glendale. And maybe that’s because I’m a little older than I was, but I leap through those newspapers, and I’m very interested in what’s going on locally. So I think it’s important. Democracy dies in the dark. So yeah, you have to have light on it from local news. It’s the only way people know something.

The post ‘People are tired of being told what they need.’ – Glendale City Council Candidate Patrick Murphy first appeared on Local News Pasadena.