City Sticks Its Thumb in the Dike

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

The hottest subject in the Police Dept. on Wednesday afternoon was a stern-faced memo, via email, carrying a cryptic message warning “all department personnel” to clam up whenever anyone inquires about the arrest of Albert Vera Jr. Therein may lie a tale. The tale may be even more intriguing than the unusual external circumstances surrounding the latest encounter between police and the son of the recently retired mayor.

The Origin of the Species

From first-month Police Chief Don Pedersen, the memo was believed to be linked to a Wednesday morning story in thefrontpageonline.com, not just a random occurrence. Enlarging on information reported here the day before, that Mr. Vera supposedly had a Culver City police radio in his possession when arrested, the newspaper said the police radio was believed to have been checked out by a prominent Culver City official. That was the crux of the update. Once the chief-generated memo was emailed, two police sources told the newspaper the memo seemed to pack a blockbuster punch that required an explanation. “This is not so much about Mr. Vera having the police radio,” one officer said, “as it is about the person who checked it out. That is the story. This is not really about Albert Vera Jr. or Albert Vera Sr. The Vera name undoubtedly adds a kind of magic to the story. After all, the memo is very case-specific.”

Jaffe Salutes New Contract

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

The chief negotiator for the School District during laborious talks with the Teachers Union about a new contract said Wednesday the terms of the just-reached agreement “are fair and equitable.” One day after Union members voted handily, 227 to 51, to approve a deal that has been two years in the making, Asst. Supt. Patty Jaffe said she is so pleased that she is ready to start on the next agreement. Preferably, she added, without the deluge of negative emotions that dominated the final round of negotiations.

Searching for a Search

Ari L. NoonanSports

Terminally optimistic, I cannot be dissuaded from the stubborn notion that the Noble School Board of Culver City — as the members may be known when they reach heaven — will select a new Superintendent by 10 years from Sunday. Be still my heart. Please do not try to convince me that the apparent planet-wide search will take one day longer. Friends, preferring anonymity, report they have seen a couple of School Board members, appearing slightly unmoored, roaming adjacent neighborhoods while cradling their under-sized Toys R Us flashlights. They appeared to be combing the silent, darkened streets for a worthy Super successor to replace the retiring Dr. Laura McGaughey. As my late Uncle Ferdinand used to say when he ambled out of his fiercely burning house, “There’s a rush?”

 

Teachers Say ‘Yes’ in a Big Way

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

      In a sign of a very strained environment, even though the Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ratify a long-elusive contract with the School District, Union President David Mielke was hardly beaming. “This is just a preamble to negotiations for next year,” he said grudgingly after Natalie Gualtieri, a teacher at Lin Howe School, completed the count in her classroom. “It took us two years to get something done that should have been much easier, much quicker. This is the District’s fault. True to form,  they offered not what was right early in the process, and they offered what was left over late in the process.”

Vera’s Police Radio Mystery

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

A potentially explosive development — involving a second Culver City person — has emerged in the afterglow of the arrest of Albert Vera Jr. last Friday in the middle of the night at a construction site in Redondo Beach. Police sources said the incident may have been drug related. When Redondo Beach police picked up the forty-one-year-old son of the retired mayor at about 2:30 a.m., he was reported to have in his possession a police radio from the Culver City Police Dept. This was one of several puzzling aspects of the latest cop-related episode involving the scion to the Vera property-ranch-commercial empire.
 
Booked on a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon, Mr. Vera Jr. posted the bail of $35,000 shortly afterward. Arraignment is expected in about a month. The County District Attorney’s office is likely to be notified of the case Wednesday, a Redondo spokesperson said.

Time To Be Suspicious

Ari L. NoonanSports

When you go to the polls on Tuesday, you should be able to devote your time to deciding between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides instead of poring over Prop. 82 —the Universal Preschool Initiative. Just as you should keep driving when you spot a restaurant named “Mother’s,” when you see the term “universal” on the ballot, worry and then vote no. For the unsuspecting voter, “universal” means we are going to make you do this regardless of whether  you have any inclination to follow through. Call it the forced schooling initiative, applicable to every four-year-old in California. Free for everybody. Remember what your mother told you about an object that is free? Besides, the free-ness is only for half-a-day. If the liberals who are mindlessly promoting this plan were watching more closely, they would realize that poor people cannot send their drivers to school in mid-day to pick up their children. They need all day. Picky, picky, say our friendly neighborhood liberals. The most fascinating statistic I have seen shows that sixty-four percent of California four-year-olds already are enrolled. Education experts say the maximum number who reasonably could be added is seventy percent, a scant increase of six percent. This, friends, is why Archie Bunker used to call the former actor Rob Reiner, author of the bill, “Meathead.” Archie just never dreamed Mr. Reiner would play the same role in real life.

Junior Vera’s Latest Tussle with Police

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

      One month after his much-celebrated father left office as the Mayor of Culver City,  Albert Vera Jr. was back in trouble, arrested in the pre-dawn hours last Friday under bizarre circumstances that may have been drug-related. Around 2:30 a.m., he was reported to have been loitering near a construction site when Redondo Beach police arrested him on a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon.
 
 
 
Mr. Vera posted bail of $35,000 to avoid spending the Memorial Day weekend behind bars.

In Whom Do We Trust?

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

To indicate the gap in acuity between my wife and me, two Sunday mornings ago over breakfast, she was reading The New York Times and I, The Jewish Journal. Even though the lightly written Journal is not a destination for serious Jews or for purveyors of serious Jewish thinking, I often find an item that makes my passionate little heart beat faster.
Passing the Beauty Test
 
On this morning, it was a salty letter to the editor from Isaac Jeret, the rabbi of the Conservative synagogue Ner Tamid, positioned on a gorgeous hilltop in Rancho Palos Verdes. To be fair, even the gutters in Rancho Palos Verdes are gorgeous. Before proceeding to my point, Rabbi Jeret fell (or leaped) into a trap favored by many rabbis who are stuck when asked to write a job description. With straight faces that indicate admirable self-control, or internal discomfort, Conservative and Reform rabbis love to describe themselves as "spiritual leader” of the congregation, as opposed, I presume, to pompous ass of the  congregation. Is the artificially inflated “spiritual leader” title intended to distinguish the learned rabbi from the Dishwasher of the Congregation or, heaven forbid, the cantor?

Let the Music Begin

Ari L. NoonanA&E

• See full schools’ concert schedule below
 
Culver City High School and the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts will present their Spring Music Showcase on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Robert Frost Auditorium. This free concert offers the community an opportunity to hear award-winning music from Culver City student ensembles, including the AVPA Chamber Singers and Jazz Combo as well as the high school’s Concert Choir and Concert Band. The Middle School Choir will also perform with its director Paul Witt.
 
These young musicians and their directors have had a busy few weeks. AVPA’s Chamber Singers, under the direction of math teacher Lisa Michel performed at the Education Foundation’s recent annual Tribute to the Stars dinner. The next day won first place in their division at the Music in the Parks Festival at Universal Studios.

Santa Maria Ready to Fire It Up

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

When it comes to imaginative Downtown dining experiences, Culver City giveth and taketh awayeth — a couple of weeks ago, the popular San Gennaro Café left town, and in a few days, perhaps by next weekend, Jim Rodrigues will unveil his newest, largest incarnation of Santa Maria Barbecue. Shifting from — but not abandoning — his pocket-sized store across from City Hall, a rectangular-shaped Santa Maria Barbecue is almost at the curtain-raising stage in Prado Plaza, at the corner of Irving Place and Culver Boulevard. He has purposely, and perhaps shrewdly, reshaped the layout from its previous crowded, boxy contours. In these last days before the red and white awnings light up, Mr. Rodrigues, baseball cap yanked low over his shadow-bearded face, directs the scores of scurrying workmen to finish ahead of his floating deadline. A rock ‘n roll drummer for thirty years, and in his third decade in food service, Mr. R. has educated himself to a razor edge in a volatile industry where failures regularly outnumber rewards by a factor of a hundred to one. He is not just another pretty face along Downtown’s sophisticated and expanding Restaurant Row. He is a player equally at ease both out front and in the back room.