Cheap lunch with the mayor, No. 2
West Covina Mayor Mike Touhey, batting No. 2 in my luncheon lineup, couldn't cut a more different figure from lead-off hitter Mayor Owen Newcomer of Whittier.
He's of a different generation -- 45 rather than 59. He's a truly big guy, shaved head, goatee -- to continue this West Co-appropriate if otherwise rather ridiculous baseball metaphor, the kind you want batting cleanup. He dropped out of high school to be with his dad when the latter was fatally ill with lung cancer rather than go on to get Newcomer's 'SC Ph.D in poli sci. He's a life member of the NRA and a moderate to conservative GOPer to the Whit mayor's moderate to liberal Democratic leanings.
He's also an incredibly savvy investor in residential real estate. After we met at Villa Tepeyac -- with my boss, SGVN Executive Editor Steve O'Sullivan, along for the tostadas -- Touhey told us how he began working at 15 at a drive-through dairy he later bought and operated. At just 17, going in with his brother, he had the $4,000 down