Historical Interview with Former Mayor Bob Lambert and Pier Dedication Recap – May 14, 2026
Historical Interview with Former Mayor Bob Lambert and Pier Dedication Recap – May 14, 2026
This special meeting of the Huntington Beach City Council, held on May 14, 2026, at 10:00 AM, featured an oral history interview with former Mayor Bob Lambert conducted by Dr. Tom Cooper, followed by a pre-recorded episode of "Flashback" detailing the history of the Huntington Beach Pier and the 1985 reopening of the End Cafe. No formal business, votes, or public comments were conducted.
Discussion Items
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Interview with Former Mayor Bob Lambert: Councilmember Tom Cooper interviewed Bob Lambert, who served on the city council from 1958 to 1966, including as mayor from 1962 to 1964. Lambert recounted being recruited to run after a fire department meeting, defeating an incumbent by 31 votes. He discussed early initiatives: a downtown study with the Urban Land Institute, a traffic survey by the Auto Club, ordinances requiring developers to donate land for parks and fire stations, coordination with school districts to co-locate parks, and efforts to clean up oil field areas through an oil fuel committee. He noted the arrival of Douglas Aircraft (dedicated by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1963) as the city's first major industry. Lambert expressed pride in the council's foresight and stated he would not change anything if he could do it over. He declined to offer advice to the current council, saying he preferred to let them "roll their own boat." He mentioned council compensation started at $50 per month and was later increased to $125 per month by a ballot measure. Lambert now works as a service manager at Manning Motors and plans to retire in about a year.
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Huntington Beach Pier Historical Segment: The meeting included an episode of "Flashback" narrated by Fire Department Deputy Chief Eric McCoy, covering the pier's history from its 1902 wooden construction (1,000 feet long) to its many rebuilds after storms. Key events: the 1912 storm that nearly destroyed the wooden pier; the 1914 concrete pier (1,350 feet, then the longest concrete pier in the U.S.); the 1939 hurricane that collapsed 250 feet of the pier; the WPA-built pavilion (finished 1939, later a restaurant); World War II military occupation; the 1983 storms that caused nearly $1 million in damage and destroyed the End Cafe; and the 1985 reopening of a two-story, 2,900-square-foot End Cafe (later Ruby's Diner). The segment noted that the city was the only pier owner on the coast with insurance, enabling repairs. Approximately 7,000 people attended the reopening ceremony, which featured two mariachi bands and the Goodyear Blimp. The pier's role in surfing championships (1958–1974), population growth from 1,500 to over 110,000 by 1970, and the widening of the beach from 50 feet to 350 feet were also highlighted.
Key Outcomes
- No formal decisions, votes, or referrals were made during this meeting. The session served as an informational and historical presentation for the council and public. The city's cable channel produced the program as part of a series on past mayors.
Meeting Transcript
Pass away. And uh so then we uh developed the corner, to uh took uh the houses out and uh station and have leased the property since then. When uh I you're married. Yes, and uh when did you get married after you got out of the service? We were married in January 47. January 47. What is your wife's name? Jane. Jane. And how about children? I have two boys, uh, uh Tom and and Mike. What did they do? Tom is security officer with the uh Atari Corporation, and Mike uh is in Santa Paula and working for Atlantic Ridgeville. Do they have any children? Yeah, yeah. The oldest boy, Tom, is married and has one child, 10. Uh Michael's still single. And your wife what does she do? Uh she works at Hogue Hospital as a secretary. Okay. Was your family involved with you when uh you first got involved with uh political life in Huntington Beach? Did they help you? Did they assist you or the boys were quite small? They were um, see, fifty fifty-eight, uh Tom was um about eight years old at the time. Mike was uh about five. Uh of course, wife um was active with me, supported it. And of course, my mother was still alive and she was uh during the campaigns, why she was quite active. One of the things that that I noticed when I first uh moved here was that there were some very active homeowners groups uh that uh that assisted with and from which individuals ran for the city council. Did you have that sort of thing when you ran for the city council? Were there homeowners' groups that were active? That the I I as I I remember when I first moved here in 62 that I went down to Main uh down on Main Street to the post office, and I think it had a sign on the post office that said the population in Huntington Beach was right at twelve thousand in nineteen sixty. So it was less than that, obviously, in nineteen fifty-eight. So the boom hadn't hit yet, but uh what kind of a campaign did you run? Well, in nineteen fifty-eight, uh uh the north area was just newly annexed, uh, primarily agricultural area. Uh you did have some of the settlements of uh Liberty Park, Ocean View, and what we call Boulevard Gardens. That's up close to the uh Huntington Center in that area. Uh the in the population had jumped uh from a little over five thousand to about ten thousand with the annexation. In those days you had to have uh you had to be a resident of Huntington Beach for two years before you could run for an office. Well, after we were married, we uh uh built a house in inside the the old city limits of Huntington Beach. So uh one night I belonged to the Ocean View Fire Department in the county then those days. One night after the meeting got talking about the coming election, and they realized that no one in the north area was eligible to run for city council. And all of a sudden they said, You live in the old section of town. And I said yes. And of course, my business was out there and I was raised. So they said we want you to run. I said, Well, if you'll help support me, why I'll go. That's how I got uh that's how I got into politics. I beat the uh well, former mayor and councilman. Later on, he got back on the council with Ted Bartlett by 31 votes. Or was there uh he was the incumbent?
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