SAN BERNARDINO – Valerie Pope- Ludlam, who was the first black woman elected to the City Council and later pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a developer, has died. She was 78.
Pope-Ludlam, a longtime Westside activist and former president of the nonprofit West Side Community Development Corporation, died Sunday, three days after Norris P. Gregory Jr., the city’s first black councilman.
“It’s a sad time in the 6th Ward,” said Councilman Rikke Van Johnson, who represents the ward. “We’ve lost two giants.”
Pope-Ludlam came to San Bernardino in 1962. Three years later, as a member of the Community League of Mothers, she led an anti-segregation boycott of the local school district.
She took office as a councilwoman in June 1987 and represented the 6th Ward until March 1996. After her time in office, Pope-Ludlam went through several years of legal trouble..
In 2000, she pleaded guilty to forging signatures as part of a campaign to recall Betty Dean Anderson, who replaced her on the council.
In 2003, Pope-Ludlam was charged by the state Attorney General’s Office with 31 counts of offering or receiving bribes. In 2004, she accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to one count of bribing a public official.
The charges all stemmed from bribes Pope-Ludlam and others admitted taking from developer Al Steward.
But Anderson said Pope-Ludlam did plenty of good during and before her time on the council.
“She was a very good council person,” Anderson said. “She initiated a lot of programs for minority people in this community. She did a lot of good work for the city of San Bernardino.”
As president of the West Side Community Development Corp., she spearheaded an effort to install solar water and space heaters on 10 Veterans Administration houses in San Bernardino – a project that earned her the notice of Ebony magazine in 1980.
“She went after a lot of things – federal programs,” Anderson said. “She brought a lot of money into the city of San Bernardino. I hope people will remember her for all the good things she did for this city.”
Johnson said that’s how she’ll be remembered by Westside residents.
“In the community, in the 6th Ward, she’ll be remembered for being a council person that represented the common people well,” he said.
Pope-Ludlam’s family could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
