Alexander Pope Papers

This collection is divided into three series, with approximately 45 percent of the materials consisting of Pope's Personal files, 34 percent from the County Assessor's Office and the remaining 21 percent from the offices of the California Citizens Budget Commission. The bulk of the materials are administrative in nature and format, such as letters, memos and reports. There is a considerable amount of political ephemera, legislation, litigation and published research documents, as well as photographs. Far and wide, the materials related to the implementation of Proposition 13 are the highlight of the collection.

Individual series descriptions appear below:

Series 1: L.A. County Assessor's Office, 1880-1992

The majority of these files were created by various division chiefs and deal with administrative issues, personnel and valuation of property. Concentrations of interest begin in the Philip Watson era with his field deputy's efforts to write a history of the Assessor's Office, followed by the Bellino audit report and Watson's response to this scrutiny. There are also litigation files, Assessment Appeals Board (AAB) cases, sample forms, departmental activities, work plans, status reports, statistics and California State Board of Equalization documents. There are administrative files from the Pope era regarding such issues as Proposition 13's implementation, split roll, conflict of interests and assessment practices.

Los Angeles County Assessor's Office staff featured in the collection include:

Post-Pope assessors marginally represented in this collection:

Series 2: Pope: Personal, 1923-1998

Here is found a plethora of campaign materials and administrative documents, the bulk of which come from Pope's own campaigns for assessor, L.A. County Supervisor, 4th District, and his run for the State Board of Equalization. Pope was involved in many other politicians' campaigns, with the most activity involving Adlai Stevenson's presidential runs, Pat Brown for Governor, Pat Russell for LA City Council, and Jerome R. Waldie for Governor.

Formats include correspondence, invitations, filing papers, accounting materials, funding disclosure forms, voting statistics, campaign ephemera and mailers, press kits, agendas, speeches and debate materials. The highlight in this area may very well be an Eisenhower-Nixon comic book. Pope was involved with local Democratic clubs, but also attended national and state conventions and related materials are fully represented here.

Pope was a consultant for the implementation of the McCone Commission report on the Los Angeles riots of 1965 and documents and articles cover related topics such as racism, welfare reform, job programs and business development. There is a wide range of transportation-related documents and publications from the years Pope served on the California Highway Commission (featuring the Mineral King development, Long Beach Freeway extension through South Pasadena) and the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners.

During his years as L.A. County Assessor, Pope was active in developing and promoting legislation to address problem areas of Proposition 13, and other property valuation issues which are featured in the Legal and Legislative sub-series, along with litigation documents. Other Pope activities of note involve the California Assessor's Association (CAA) and the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO). Pope was active in a wide range of community-based organizations including the Westchester Mental Health Clinic, the YMCA and the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Pope's lecture materials and handouts from his trip to China are also in this series, as well as his chronological and administrative files from his law practice.

California Citizens Budget Commission, 1917-2000

The California Citizens Budget Commission first met in 1993 under the auspices of the Center for Governmental Studies. It was a blue-ribbon panel of twenty-three non-partisan community leaders who had the goal of reforming the state's budget process and later, the state's health care system. The series consists substantially of research articles on budget and health care reform and many drafts of the Commission's reports. Administrative files were accumulated by Pope and other CCBC staff including research analyst Karen Klabin, research associate Camelia Siminescu and secretary Chanel Young.