Rick Tuttle (born January 5, 1940) is an American
politician, university administrator and educator from
Los Angeles,
California.
Early life
Rick Tuttle was born in
New Haven, Connecticut, one of four children of Frederick Burton Tuttle and his wife, Mary Emily. His father was a descendant of a longtime
New England family that originally settled in New Haven in 1638. His mother's family came from
Arkansas. Due to his father's service in the
U.S. Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through comb ...
, the family moved to Arkansas, then back to
Connecticut and afterwards to
Rhode Island before finally settling in
Plattsburgh, New York
Plattsburgh ( moh, Tsi ietsénhtha) is a city in, and the seat of, Clinton County, New York, United States, situated on the north-western shore of Lake Champlain. The population was 19,841 at the 2020 census. The population of the surrounding ...
, where he graduated high school.
In civilian life, Frederick, Tuttle's father, was a
high school track
Track or Tracks may refer to:
Routes or imprints
* Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity
* Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across
* Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...
coach before becoming a school
principal in a predominantly
African-American New Haven neighborhood. He was also a member of the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
, and his involvement in civic affairs made a strong impression on his son.
Education
Tuttle received a
Ph.D. in 1975 and an
M.A. in
history in 1964 from UCLA, as well as a
B.A. in history, with honors and distinction, from
Wesleyan University in 1962.
He worked his way through college by working on various jobs, including at construction sites and as a farm hand.
While an undergraduate at Wesleyan, Tuttle was a member of the university's Civil Rights Committee. Raised as an
Episcopalian
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
and
Methodist, he served as president of its
Alpha Chi Rho chapter and led a campaign to end what was then the fraternity's official policy of restricting membership to Christians.
[
]
Civil rights era activism
While a graduate student at UCLA, Tuttle participated in the Freedom Rides in 1961 and was recruited to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
(SNCC) in 1963. He went to Greenwood, Mississippi to work on voter registration drives and also briefly spied on white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
meetings.
After being driven out of Mississippi by threats, he joined the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in Savannah, Georgia, where he was arrested, without a proper warrant, for disturbing the peace and jailed for six weeks.[ Tuttle called Medgar Evers from jail to solicit his assistance a few hours before Evers was killed.] He was ultimately released by a local judge after a prominent Savannah
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...
physician offered his property as bond in exchange for Tuttle's agreement to leave the county.[
]
Public service
Tuttle was elected to four four-year terms in non-partisan elections as Los Angeles City Controller, serving from 1985 to 2001. In 1985 he was the only candidate running and won 100% of the vote, in 1989 he won with 79.3%, in 1993 with 77.41%, and in 1997 with 70.97%.
By the end of his first term he had earned a reputation for fiscal responsibility.
In a 1989 editorial endorsing his first re-election bid, ''The Los Angeles Times'' stated:
And when he retired from public service, a ''Times'' columnist wrote:
Tuttle is a member of the Democratic Party. His first public position was co-chairman of California Young Citizens for Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. A year later, he founded, along with U.S. Congressmen
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
Howard Berman and Henry Waxman and Los Angeles County Supervisor
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the five-member governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States.
History
On April 1, 1850 the citizens of Los Angeles elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first ...
Zev Yaroslavsky, the Los Angeles County Young Democrats
The Los Angeles County Young Democrats (LACYD) is a political organization in Southern California. It is an official Democratic Club, and is chartered with the California Young Democrats, the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, and the Lo ...
and succeeded Berman and Waxman as statewide president of the California Federation of Young Democrats.
He had briefly considered returning to elected office in 2009 by running for the open Los Angeles City Council District 5 seat to replace the retiring Jack Weiss, but threw his support to Ron Galperin
Ron Shalom Galperin (born August 1, 1963) is an American politician who served as the 19th Los Angeles City Controller from 2013 to 2022. He took office on July 1, 2013 and won re-election in 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Galperin is th ...
instead.
Tuttle also served as a director of the Los Angeles West Chamber of Commerce
A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ad ...
[ and an interviewee of the Fellows Program at ]Coro
Coro or CORO may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Coro'' (Berio), a composition by Luciano Berio
* Coro (music), Italian for choir
* Coro TV, Venezuelan community television channel
* Omweso (Coro), mancala game played in the Lango region of Uganda
* ...
of Southern California.
Academic career
A former associate dean of student activities at UCLA, Tuttle served for eight years as an elected member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.
After completing the statutory maximum of four terms as city controller, he returned to UCLA as executive director of the Dashew International Center for Student and Scholars, serving in that capacity until 2006. Since then he has taught courses in public policy as a lecturer in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and was voted public policy professor of the year three times. In these positions, he has stressed the importance of creating a strong democratic tradition at UCLA, which, in his words, is "the best large public university in a major city."
Tuttle has also been a member of the board of directors of UCLA's University Religious Conference and a board member of the UCLA Alumni Association.
Awards
Tuttle is a recipient of the Equal Justice in Government Award of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...
, the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Pacific Southwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
, the Lifetime Membership Award of the Los Angeles Business Council, the UCLA Alumni Public Service Award, and the Distinguished Leadership Award for 1996 presented by the Association of Government Accountants. He received the Los Angeles Employee of the Year Award in 1997 from the All City Employees Benefits Service Association (ACEBSA).[
]
Personal life
Tuttle met his first wife, Muff Singer (February 14, 1942 – January 16, 2005), while both were working on Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in California. They married in 1976. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and former Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, she would later become campaign coordinator and the first administrative assistant of Howard Berman while he was a member of the California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.
The A ...
, prior to his election to the U.S. Congress. She left government service to pursue a career as a successful writer of children's books. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she died of ovarian cancer at their Los Angeles home. Rick Tuttle and Muff Singer are the parents of one daughter, Sarah Emily.
In 2008 Tuttle married Rebecca Rona, a professional writer and social, environmental and political activist. She founded the grassroots organization Together, which for a decade promoted human relations and understanding; worked to end fracking and oil extraction in the Inglewood Oil Field, and has been the driving force behind an effort to convince Culver City to form the Culver City Equity and Human Relations Committee. In 2018, she was honored by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party with the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Award as Democrat of the Year for her Assembly District. Currently she serves as communications director of South Los Angeles Health Projects.
In his spare time Tuttle is an avid basketball fan and, by 2002, was the second-oldest full-court basketball player in Los Angeles.
References
External links
Rick Tuttle faculty bio at UCLA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuttle, Rick
1940 births
Living people
Politicians from Los Angeles
Los Angeles City Controllers
California Democrats
Wesleyan University alumni
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs faculty
Freedom Riders
American civil rights activists
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Activists from California