Larry Forester, a 21-year councilman, in the City Hall council chambers in Signal Hill on Friday, Mar. 1, 2019. Forester is retiring on March 26 after having served on the Signal Hill city council since 1998. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Larry Forester, a 21-year councilman, in the City Hall council chambers in Signal Hill on Friday, Mar. 1, 2019. Forester is retiring on March 26 after having served on the Signal Hill city council since 1998. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Larry Forester, a 21-year councilman, in front of City Hall in Signal Hill on Friday, Mar. 1, 2019. Forester is retiring on March 26 after having served on the Signal Hill city council since 1998. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

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Larry Forester, a 21-year councilman, in front of City Hall in Signal Hill on Friday, Mar. 1, 2019. Forester is retiring on March 26 after having served on the Signal Hill city council since 1998. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)



For the past 21 years, one of the few constants in Signal Hill has been Larry Forester.

He is a four-time mayor. He has won elections unopposed — and by a single vote.

He helped bring in million-dollar houses to a previously undeveloped patch of the tiny city’s hilltop, worked to improve Los Angeles County’s storm-water capture systems, and led an effort to ensure public agencies across the state were informed on transgender rights. He has used his public profile to champion education about and compassion for those living with HIV and AIDS, the latter of which Forester has lived with since 1994.

Related: These are the three candidates running for two seats for this Signal Hill City Council race

But Forester’s public life will end this month.

On Tuesday, March 5, residents of the 2.2-square-mile Signal Hill, entirely surrounded by Long Beach, will go to the polls. Three candidates, including Mayor Tina Hansen, will vie for two seats on the City Council.

And for the first time since 1999 — the year after he was initially appointed to the council — Forester will not appear on the ballot.

“I’ve accomplished everything I’ve wanted to,” Forester said last week. “It’s time to move on.”

Forester was a reluctant public figure to begin with.

Nothing about his upbringing or his life before Signal Hill suggested he would become an elected official.

Forester, now 71, grew up in Post-World War II Long Island, next door to the original Levittown housing development. The family moved there from his native Northwest Chicago when his father got a job at JCPenney.

He was the oldest of six kids to devout Catholic parents, and attended parochial schools.

So when it came time to go to college, he said, there was no doubt where he’d go: his dad’s alma mater — Notre Dame.

He came, after all, a month from being born there.

“My dad had a semester left when my mom got pregnant,” he said. “A month before I was born, she went to live with her family in Illinois.”

Forester studied engineering and then went to Catholic University of America for his master’s in ocean engineering.

He then got a job at Exxon – and began traveling the country.

After a stint in New Jersey, Exxon transferred him to San Francisco. For Forester, who is gay, there was no place like the Bay Area in the 1970s.

“It was gay heaven,” he said.

Forester described himself during that time as a “chicken,” a term from that era referring to a young man who older gay men were attracted to.

“I had a lot of fun.”

But, perhaps, he wasn’t safe enough: He was diagnosed with HIV in September 1985.

“The first person I told,” Forester said, “was my dad.”

Forester needed his dad’s logical thinking, his advice on how to overcome the diagnosis.

“My mom would just cry,” he added. “She’d say I was going to die before her.”

But the diagnosis did not defeat him.

He moved to Southern California — Corona del Mar — in 1981, and soon made his way to Long Beach, where he eventually dedicated himself to advocating for those with HIV and AIDS. Forester, who moved to Signal Hill in 1987, would keep that work up for the rest of his life.

In 1994, he joined the board for AIDS Walk of Greater Long Beach. That same year, his T-cells — or white blood cells, which fight off disease — dropped to dangerous levels and he was diagnosed with AIDS. He began a course of triple-drug therapy.

He was also the chairman for Being Alive Long Beach, an HIV advocacy group, for a decade and worked with the CARE program at St. Mary Medical Center.

Today, certain drugs make HIV largely preventable. The number of new cases in Long Beach has plateaued, according to public health officials. But other sexually transmitted diseases — syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia — are on the rise. Forester thinks some people use the HIV prevention drugs and prophylactics — and it worries him.

“Kids, educate yourself,” he said. “You have the ability to protect yourselves.

“I have no friends left in San Francisco,” Forester added about the effect of not practicing safe sex. “I’ve lost them all.”

Forester, however, successfully built a new life in Signal Hill – and starting in 1990, became increasingly involved not only in HIV/AIDS advocacy, but also in politics.

He and several other community activists had become concerned by the then-City Council’s reluctance to build on top of the hill. So they created a nonprofit group, Concerned Citizens of Signal Hill, to fight for development.

The group sought to place houses on the hill, and worked to oust the council members opposed to doing so.

“By ’96, we had flipped the council,” Forester said. “We had all this vacant land on top of the hills and now we have million-dollar homes.”

It was Forester’s first victory. Many more would come.

Forester was eventually appointed to the Planning Commission. Then, in 1999, a councilman moved away a year before his term ended.

“They asked me if I’d be interested in being on the council,” Forester said. “I told them no.”

They appointed him anyway. A year later, supporters asked him to run to stay on the council. Again, he balked.

He wasn’t sure he had the energy. AIDS and the drugs to fight it tired him out – and, on top of that, the same year as the election, he found out he had hepatitis C.

“I was reluctant to do it,” he said. “I was worried I wouldn’t have the energy to run. They said they’d run (the campaign) for me.”

And he won.

And Forester soon realized he enjoyed his work.

“I found my engineering mind was good enough,” Forester said. “I could do it.”

He won re-election unopposed. The next time, he eked out a win by a single vote — causing former Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster to jokingly call him “landslide Larry.”

Forester took on several initiatives during his career. He worked to bring in even more car dealerships to Signal Hill, and to develop multiple shopping centers. The city’s businesses now sell about $1.7 billion of goods a year, he said.

He also spent years putting his ocean engineering degree to use — working with several county coalitions of local governments to improve the region’s water infrastructure.

His efforts reached a climax last year: In November, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure W, an annual parcel tax that will raise an estimated $300 million annually. That money will go toward improving water quality, capturing stormwater, and reducing pollution and trash that harms the water supply.

“That’s one of my biggest accomplishments,” Forester said.

And now, he added, there’s nothing left for him to do. In April, Forester will turn 72.

Over the last three years, he’s seen a steep decline in his energy.

He missed the last council meeting because of a cold.

Forester is finally ready to rest.

“The drugs have caught up with me,” he said. “It is time to let somebody else have a chance.”

So on Tuesday, March 26, Forester will sit on the City Council dais for the last time. His replacement — either City Clerk Keir Jones or upstart Chris Wilson — will be sworn in. Forester’s career will be over.

A week later, he’ll have a birthday party — that will double as a farewell.

“It will be bittersweet,” Forester said.

So what, then, is next for Forester? He said he hopes to move to an assisted living facility in Florida with one of his sisters, possibly within a year.

And when that time comes, it will be official:

Larry Forester and Signal Hill will part ways.