Wilder W. Hartley

Wilder Wellington Hartley (April 4, 1901 – August 17, 1970) was a member of the Los Angeles City Council from the Harbor and South Los Angeles districts from 1939 to 1943.

Biography

Hartley was born in Reno, Nevada, on April 4, 1901, and was brought to Wilmington, California, in 1903, where his father became chief engineer for the Hammond Lumber Company. Wilder attended Wilmington High School and Stanford University. He worked for Hammond for a time and then went into the insurance business. In 1924 he and Laura Mae Clark were married. Hartley was a Republican.

Hartley died at the age of 69 on August 17, 1970, in Harbor City, leaving his wife and three daughters, Marilyn Swanson, Ann Wilmoth and Joyce Christiansen. He was buried in San Pedro.

Ex-Communist (1940). Hartley joined the 9–4 majority of the council in asking Mayor Fletcher Bowron to remove a former Communist, labor leader Don Healy, from a city charter revision committee that Bowron had appointed months previously. "Communists don't change overnight," Hartley said, referring to Healy's switch in registration from Communist to Democratic.

Mayor (1940). He was appointed to a committee of five council members to call on Bowron to complain about "persistent and erroneous" remarks the mayor made about the council in his radio addresses.

Servicemen (1943). He suggested that "spacious City Hall rooms" might be set aside at night for emergency sleeping quarters for servicemen "instead of having them walking the streets, sleeping in parks or telephone booths due to lack of hotel rooms."