Steve Madison Becomes the Longest Serving City Councilmember in Pasadena History
Councilmember Madison Breaks Record Established During Tumultuous Times
By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Now, 9/14/2026
On Tuesday, September 1, while touring Denver Union Station in Colorado as part of a research trip for the 710 stub project, Pasadena’s District 6 City Councilmember Steve Madison became the longest serving Councilmember in Pasadena’s history. He was originally elected in the March 9, 1999, general election and was sworn into office on May 3, 1999.
Madison broke the record held by Milton S. Brenner, who served on the Board of City Directors (as the City Council was then known) from January 5, 1932, to May 4, 1959. Brenner was first elected on December 28, 1931, in a recall election that resulted in an entirely new board replacing the incumbents. During the election, the challengers had campaigned on abolishing the office of mayor and installing a strong city manager form of government.
A scandal “rooted in the corruption of some city employees… in the street and engineering department” ultimately led to the recall election. “A ring of forgers had embezzled thousands of dollars in city funds,” according to local historian Ann Scheid. Because the Board did not fire the city manager over the issue, a group of reformers led by Myron Hunt named the Pasadena Association acquired signatures for the recall. One of their main causes was giving Pasadena residents priority for jobs on city building projects such as City Hall, the Rose Bowl expansion, and the Hall of Justice.
Brenner lived at 1836 Lincoln Ave. and represented West Pasadena in what was then called District 1. His district included Brookside Park, the Rose Bowl, and a prison camp facility in the Arroyo Seco that he famously protested against. City prisoners were housed in a dilapidated building near the entrance to Brookside Park and the Rose Bowl for 12 years.
Brenner kept a political diary and scrapbook from 1938-1941, currently housed at the Pasadena Museum of History, which tells the tale.
According to a newspaper article at the time, it was “threat of recall made by some of the city’s most prominent men and women against the entire board of city directors and the city manager unless the prison camp in the Arroyo is moved from its entrance to Brookside Park [which] rocked the foundation of the executive room of the city hall… City Director Milton S. Brenner asked City Manager C. W. Koiner point blank when he intended moving the prison camp out of the Arroyo. It struck the board like a thunderbolt. And for just a few seconds there was dead silence. And then the bombshell burst and the board went round and round with the city manager on the defensive.”
Brenner reportedly said, “The people in my district want it moved and I think they’re right. Boys and girls are going down to Brookside to swim and play tennis and have picnics. And what do they have to pass, a lot of prisoners sitting out in the sun taking a sunbath. Why can’t they be kept in jail?”
Koiner said the City lacked the necessary municipal funds to build a replacement jail, so they instead secured $36,000 in federal funds from the Works Progress Administration and built a new prison camp at city yards on Glen Ave. The Park Superintendent “promised to seed the [original camp] area after the eyesore was removed and to install a lighted driving range for the public.”
Brenner Park is named after Milton Brenner, as is the Brenner Park Neighborhood Association. In the minutes of the City Board of Directors’ May 26, 1953, meeting, the Board approved a resolution to name the City-owned “tract of land lying southerly of Manzanita Avenue between Chapman Avenue and Mountain Street” after him, the Milton S. Brenner Park. The resolution stated that Brenner “has served and is serving the City of Pasadena and its citizens faithfully and well,” with “many years of faithful, valuable and outstanding public service.”
One of the new directors who was elected in the 1931 recall election alongside Brenner was Albert Stewart, now the subject of debate at the current Council about whether to remove his mayoral portrait from City Hall because of his involvement in the Pasadena Improvement Association in the 1940s, which supported exclusionary racial housing covenants and neighborhood redlining in Pasadena. Brenner, who worked in real estate, was a close ally and supporter of Stewart. Brenner supported Stewart when he successfully ran for the state Assembly in 1944. According to a newspaper article at the time, Brenner was frequently mistaken for Stewart, as they looked very similar.
They were both on the Board when, in 1939, Black residents sued the City to desegregate the Brookside Plunge municipal pool. The pool was only open to white residents except one day a week, which was called International Day. The pool was subsequently drained and refilled before opening again to white residents the following day. In the lawsuit, Stone v. Pasadena, Brenner was named as a defendant along with the other Board of City Directors. The Board fought the lawsuit and defended the City’s “separate but equal” segregationist policy. In 1944, the California District Court of Appeals ruled that the City’s policy was illegal and unconstitutional.
Part of Brenner’s service on the Board of City Directors overlapped with Seth Miller, another political ally. In 1958, as mayor, Miller refused to take a photo with Joan Williams, an African American City employee who had been selected by her City Hall colleagues as that year’s Miss Crown City, a Rose Queen-esque honor at the time. The City also canceled its Rose Parade float, on which Miss Crown City was supposed to ride.
It wasn’t until 2015, when Williams finally rode on the lead float in the Rose Parade, that this racial injustice was addressed. On April 5, 2014, at a gala honoring Williams, Councilmember Madison became the first City official to apologize to her for the 1958 incident “on behalf of my forebears,” he told her.
During Brenner’s tenure on the Board, the mayor’s seat was a rotating position among the directors. Brenner never served as mayor or vice mayor in his 27 years on the Board, consistently refusing the position every time it was offered to him. He apparently had no interest in the mostly symbolic role. Because of his seniority, however, he did have the title “Dean of the Board.”
Brenner and Miller were closely aligned politically. They shared a joint re-election campaign committee during the 1959 election, which they both lost.
Brenner was finally soundly defeated, after 27 years on the Board, by Mac Linton, an attorney and Chamber of Commerce president. The election was held April 2, 1959, and Brenner’s last day in office was May 4, 1959. Miller was defeated by Grant Changstrom, a real estate executive, who accused the mayor of “running a locked-step stamp” over the Board of City Directors.
It was the first time since Brenner and the reform candidates cleared the slate of directors in the 1931 recall election that challengers had successfully defeated Board incumbents.
“I wish to thank all those who did vote for me and to congratulate Mr. Linton and wish him all the luck in the world,” Brenner said after the results came in.
Another milestone for Councilmember Madison will be Friday, September 18, which will be his 10,000th day of service representing District 6 on the City Council.