Wilson appeared at a meeting of the city Police Commission, along with representatives of the Los Feliz Women's Club and the Parent-Teacher Association of the Los Feliz district, to protest the issuing of a floor-show permit for the Wigwam Cafe at 3100 Los Feliz Boulevard, saying the "activities at the Wigwam keep the neighborhood awake at nights and are a nuisance to the district." 1941 The councilman was on the losing end of a 9-5 vote when the City Council approved a spot zone to allow radio station KMPC to construct a transmitter, building and towers on the north side of Burbank Boulevard about 600 feet east of Coldwater Canyon Boulevard. Neighbors protested the look of the red-and-white towers as gigantic "barber poles." Reputation Wilson was said to have an "equable and agreeable temperament" on the council and was a "wheelhorse for work." When he was appointed to the Board of Public Works, a Times reporter wrote that "Wilson is regarded as a real diplomat who might be able to iron out misunderstandings that have kept the Mayor and the Council at loggerheads." Board of Public Works Wilson was appointed to the Board of Public Works by Mayor Fletcher Bowron in February 1943 and served until 1948. His appointment was opposed by Councilman Parley Parker Christensen because Christensen believed that Wilson might have voted in favoring of reimbursing Councilman G. Vernon Bennett for gasoline and oil he used in supposedly illegally driving a city car to Vancouver, B.C. Bennett issued a statement denying the charge. Public transit In 1951 Wilson was secretary of an "engineering corporation" that was planning the construction of a monorail rapid-transit system between Long Beach and the San Fernando Valley via Downtown and the Los Angeles River. He told a reporter that "Monorail trains will attain speeds up to 100 miles an hour and, counting station stops, should average better than 40 miles an hour." At the time of his death in 1956, he was secretary of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority. References Access to the Los Angeles Times links requires the use of a library card. --- 1872 births 1956 deaths Los Angeles City Council members California Republicans People from Richland County, Ohio People from North Hollywood, Los Angeles 20th-century American politicians