[Editor’s Note: Second of two parts. See “How to Improve School Board Meetings — Gourley Makes a Suggestion,” Dec. 31.]
School Board members and watchers had to know this was coming, didn’t they?
Two-time former City Councilman Steve Gourley’s reputation for hard-hitting assertiveness and no-nonsense meetings must have rung bells across the schools community, signaling that the cavalry was riding into Irving Place.
One (brief) meeting into his four-year term as a new member of the School Board, Steve Gourley this morning provided a glimpse of the future.
Even though he is a freshman on the Board, he has nothing resembling new-guy jitters.
To put it delicately, it is unanimously agreed among his four colleagues that he is the least bashful member.
Bypassing the candidate more commonly associated with Culver City, Mayor Alan Corlin announced this morning he is supporting Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks in the June 2 election to replace long-serving County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
“I honestly believe Bernie Parks is a winner,” Mr. Corlin said, “and I want to back a winner.
It was a fascinating, and unusual, juxtaposition from where the dragon-slayer among anti-eminent domain lawyers was sitting.
Robert P. Silverstein of Pasadena had told the newspaper last summer that he intended for Marc Chiat, his under-siege client on fast-emptying Exposition Boulevard, to be the last business standing.
Indeed, he had no plans to fold.
For the feisty businessman Les Surfas, the fight with City Hall this morning is “98 per cent” over.
After three bitter years of aggressively, noisily contesting City Hall over whether it had a right to force him, via eminent domain, to relocate his warehouse at the southwest corner of National and Washington boulevards, Mr. Surfas has rested his case.
He was shoved out to clear room for the city to build a business and residential complex around the proposed light rail train terminal, accommodating the train from downtown Los Angeles.
If complications don’t arise in the next three weeks, the 600 or so LAPD officers assigned to gang and narcotics details will be required to fill out a financial accountability sheet on an annual basis, starting two years from Jan. 16.
The department long has been under a cloud of found and suspected corruption, which is why it has operated under direction from the federal government..
Ever since the Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously last Thursday to comply with a requirement of the federal consent decree, under which the department has operated for seven years, the howls of protest have been heard in every area of Los Angeles County. They claim their privacy is being fractured.
Clovis Doil Mead, a man who lived through colorful times, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Kagel Canyon, the San Fernando Valley, on Sunday morning Dec. 9, just two days after celebrating his 87th birthday.
He is survived by his daughter Susan, his stepsons Ross Hawkins and Clyde Hawkins, and his stepdaughter Nina Hawkins. He was preceded in death by his loving wife Audrie in 2003.
[Editor’s Note: The Deens, heading up Mehaul O’Leary’s campaign for City Council, composed this ditty for last night’s shipboard fundraiser.]
When Mehaul O’Leary stepped out from the office of Dep. City Clerk Ela Valladares at 12:25 this afternoon, he hardly resembled your favorite neighborhood Irish barkeep.
Not a white apron in sight.
Night-time sharp, his dark business suit, button-down shirt and flawlessly knotted necktie suggested that pulling papers to run for the City Council — for the third time — was a special deal.
[Editor’s Note: Conclusion of a two-part report on the Mobile Film Classroom program by the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education, 8885 Venice Blvd. Part I: “Wedding an Old Icon to New Technology Makes a Brilliant Marriage,” Dec. 19.]
Thinking creatively is what entrepreneurs do, and this is one explanation for Keith Lawrence’s success the last year and a half with the traveling digital media classroom that was designed by his Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education.
