Riverside City History
City Beautification

Riverside's Pride and Progress Committee began from a growing desire to clean up and spruce up a community that did not always present its best face to the metropolitan area. The effort actually began in 1978 with its founding by Finney Young, wife of Red-X owner Ed Young.

The group worked for two years, but continued complaints about the appearance of some businesses and properties in Riverside led a group of 15-20 women to meet at city hall to consider renewed action. Among the leaders was Marilyn Brenner, wife of then mayor David Brenner, who became the group's first formal chair. They began to take action immediately.

The work also followed earlier efforts by an Associated Residents-Merchants of Riverside (ARMOR) and the city of Riverside. But the Pride and Progress work represented the longest running effort and remains active today. Marilyn Brenner admits there was something of the "vigilante" spirit in the group. "But we also used a carrot along with our sticks," she recalls with a laugh. "We didn't go up and tell someone they had to fix up their property. We said, 'Can we help?' And we did. There were many Saturdays where a large group came out. Of course, when 35 or 40 people showed up with paint and everything, it was hard to refuse!" Actually, the first outing of the Pride and Progress Committee drew a staggering 200 people. One motel received a coating of between 40 and 50 gallons of paint – in one day.

The group also tread where city officials could not. "Riverside was a fourth class community and the state did not grant things such as code enforcement," Brenner recalls. "But we could quietly encourage businesses to remove things such as old, peeling billboards." Much of their work had a snowball effect. One of their first efforts involved placement of "flower barrels," decorated drums filled with plantings. At first the group placed them one at a time, working with business owners who agreed to the decorations after a presentation. Before long, however, business owners were seeking out the group to request barrels. "Barrels started to spring up all over the city," Brenner said. "It was really very dramatic."

Other Battles
About the same time as Pride and Progress was under way, the city faced one of its most difficult challenges. Riverside contained more than its share of liquor establishments – taverns and liquor stores – on a per capita basis. Then Mayor David Brenner recalled that the city in the late 1970s had between 14 and 15 businesses dispensing alcohol, most in a small section of Gateway Drive. "There were just too many for a city this size," David Brenner recalls. "I appreciate a drink, but we were just overwhelmed with them." The solution didn't occur overnight, but eventually the number of establishments was reduced. A key to the effort was recognition of the city's authority to regulate licenses. "A lot of tavern owners thought the license went with the business, automatically," he said. "It took a while, but we gradually were able to exercise some authority by the city." In 1981, all of this and other work paid off with Riverside's reception of a National Beautiful Cities Award.

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