Guest Opinion | Rick Cole: Nina Chomsky Was Not a Vestige of the Past, but an Example for the Future

In eulogizing his brother Robert, Edward Kennedy said, “(he) need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life” while still cherishing the hope that “what he was to us and what he hoped for others may someday come to pass.”

In the same spirit, I hope the tragic death of Nina Chomsky will inspire a rebirth of civic and neighborhood activism in Pasadena.

Nina Chomsky was the last of the great champions of Pasadena neighborhoods, a holdover from an era that is rapidly fading.

She fiercely advocated for a vision of neighborhoods that has gone out of style in this era of keyboard warriors on social media, using NextDoor and Facebook to complain about strangers and coyotes. Nina was once a respected leader in a citywide network of activists who made common cause, not just against traffic and overdevelopment, but in favor of a vision of Pasadena as a shared community of diverse and vibrant neighborhoods.

In Nina’s worldview, there were those who cared about our city’s future sense of place and quality of life – and there were those who pursued their own narrow interests for financial or political gain.

Nina’s brand of brash advocacy should not obscure her equally fervent dedication to working collaboratively, fostering coalitions and strengthening civic life. She dedicated decades of service to the Linda Vista-Annandale Association, Pasadena Beautiful, Pasadena Heritage and other community bulwarks and served on multiple City Commissions. She reached out across the city for allies and friends, especially in the days when Pasadena had a thriving patchwork of more than ninety neighborhood associations.

The glory days of neighborhood organizing and activism are behind us – only a few of those groups are active today. That’s a real loss. Instead of neighbors building enduring community, they are likely only to periodically rise up only in reaction to perceived threats, defending narrow interests instead of promoting active citizenship to create a better future.

Nina could be just as passionate about downtown, the Arroyo and our civic center as she was about the neighborhood where she lived because she saw those areas as the shared living room for our entire city. She built alliances across neighborhoods because she deeply believed in our country’s motto: e pluribus unam, out of many one. She served on the Northwest Commission out of her dedication to ensure that all Pasadena’s neighborhoods should have an equitable share in Pasadena’s progress and prosperity.

Like all of us, Nina had her blind spots. Even her best friends would acknowledge she could be cranky – in fact so could she in her wry, self-aware private moments. Yet her increasingly sharp edge of frustration in recent years came not from a paranoid defense of property values and exclusiveness, but from a sense of loss about Pasadena’s rich civic life.

As the poet said about his aging father, she did not “go gentle into that good night,” but raged, raged against the dying of the light. To her last days she was striving to keep alive the spirit of pride and participation that she believed was vital to a bright future for our city.

In fact, her last fight was a deeply hopeful one – the potential to reclaim the 65 acre gash in Pasadena’s neighborhood fabric that Caltrans inflicted on Pasadena half a century ago. Nina was impatient for progress on reversing the damage done by the 710 stub and reuniting West Pasadena and Old Pasadena as distinct, yet complimentary contributors to the fabric of our community. She saw opportunities for new housing, particularly affordable housing, as well as parks and greenery and for reversing the choking traffic that Caltrans forced through once-quiet residential neighborhoods to advance their plan to continue their destructive path all the way to Alhambra.

We can’t go backwards in the 21st century. But we can sustain the spirit that Nina championed of community activism – thinking globally, but acting locally. We can combine people getting to know the neighbors on their block with a spirit of “One Pasadena” – that we are all in this together across the entire community. We can enlist younger and newer residents of our community in our civic and cultural lives, passing the torch of civic and cultural involvement to the next cohort of leaders. We can recognize the changing demographics of our city – that we now have a majority of renters, not homeowners; that the neighborhoods made up of primarily of tenants and new development are just as vital, just as entitled to be heard and included as our celebrated historic neighborhoods.

Those of us who knew her will miss Nina. But those who didn’t, can take heart in her example. She was undaunted. She was tenacious. She enjoyed a long and ardent love affair with Pasadena.

Her struggles may be over. But there are new and exciting challenges ahead. Let’s inspire new generations of leaders to meet them!

Rick Cole is the District Two Councilmember. He served with Nina Chomsky on the Community Development Commission and the General Plan Steering Committee.