After spending years researching the history of Riverside City Hall, months planning its celebration and countless days writing a book on the building, Councilmember Philip Falcone took to the Benjamin Franklin stage in downtown Riverside to talk about the importance of celebrating the city’s headquarters.
“I urge all of you to think about the symbol for what city halls, in general, stand for and what they mean,” Falcone said in his Monday speech to the crowd. “It’s really about these local democratic ideals of the continuation of effective city services — through many city councils, through different mayors, different city managers — how we, together, all work to make a better city.”
More than 100 residents, including a mix of city staff, former mayors and city council members and current elected officials, gathered outside the administrative building October 6 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of Riverside City Hall. Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said it was the largest gathering of local representatives since the building’s opening half a century ago.
Juanita Pintor-Luna, the daughter of former Councilmember Ernest Pintor, brought her niece, Ava, and two nephews, Jacob and Jayden, to the event. She previously worked on her father’s campaign and spent years in the now historic administrative building. She also worked as a teacher in the city and recalled hosting tours of the downtown neighborhood for her former students.
“Back then, there weren’t many Mexican Americans who were involved in politics,” Pintor-Luna said. “[I hope his grandchildren] know that they can be a part of city government and they can make things happen in their cities, wherever they are at, or their communities.”
Stay up to date with the latest from The Record. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter today!
Pintor, Riverside’s second Hispanic council member, who was at the city hall’s opening in 1975, was also in attendance.
Local high school students kicked off the celebration with the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the national anthem, mirroring the start of the 1975 celebration.
Falcone also spoke about how he spent years researching the history of the building, which led him to collaborate with local historian Jennifer Mermilliod to write the book, “City Hall 50: Building a City Beautiful.”
Mermilliod dedicated four years to researching the history of the building, conducting interviews, gathering information and drafting a layout for the book.
“We talk about the municipal history of Riverside in the book, so we kind of lay that story out in that path,” Mermilliod said. “So I had to search a lot of newspapers, a lot of historic write-ups and journals to find the information.”
The current council marked the occasion with a plaque to commemorate the building’s designation as a local landmark. They also unveiled the city’s newest sculpture, a large orange metal raincross created by Rico Alderatte, at the intersection of the walkway at 9th and Main streets.
“To mark that occasion is not superficial, it’s not shallow. It’s really significant, because it’s about history,” Falcone told The Riverside Record. “It’s about remembering where we came from so we can know about who we are and how the city was shaped, and know how to go in the future.”
Falcone also announced that the city plans to host 50 tours in the next 12 months in an effort to introduce students to local government, an initiative he said hasn’t been offered since 2019.
The Riverside Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet providing Riverside County with high-quality journalism free of charge. We’re able to do this because of the generous donations of supporters like you!