By the hundreds, fired-up Westside Democrats streamed into the cavernous, brightly decorated Vets Auditorium last Saturday afternoon to hear the cream of the Democratic Party tell the faithful why voters should check their names in the June 6 primary. For Culver City, history was made on a colorful occasion that attracted five hundred and fifty loyal voters. It was a shining moment — four crammed hours’ worth — for the Culver City Democratic Club, widening its horizons, stretching its muscles by hosting eighteen of the twenty Democrats on the ballot, and by luring seventeen other Democratic Clubs to co-sponsor the spectacular show at the Vets.
Corlin Fumes at the New Mayor
•See main City Council story directly below this story
The first big fight of the new City Council season, between Mayor Gary Silbiger and Vice Mayor Alan Corlin, grew hotter instead of cooler Tuesday on the day after the opening session. By late afternoon, Mr. Corlin was “convinced” his legal chances of defeating Mr. Silbiger’s objection and winning a prized seat on the Council’s Light Rail Committee were one hundred percent. Mr. Silbiger stood by his Monday night assertion that the perceived end run by Mr. Corlin to gain the seat was “illegal,” and he believed he could win a change in ruling.
“Outrageous, outrageous,” Mr. Corlin said several times in describing the new Mayor’s resistance to his plan. Mr. Corlin also was fuming over an end-of-the-evening incident when he believed Mr. Silbiger may have misled the rest of the Council. Preparatory to taking over the main seat on the Light Rail Committee early next month, Mr. Corlin asked Mr. Silbiger if anything of significance was going on in light rail discussions. “I must have asked him hree or four times,” Mr. Corlin said. The Vice Mayor heard the Mayor say no. However, shortly before the meeting was adjourned, Mr. Silbiger, in a casual, by-the-way mention, noted that he had been asked to bring back two light rail-related appointments from the community. He added that he had tentatively selected two political allies. Mr. Corlin nearly exploded. “Gary did not tell us the facts,” he charged. “This is outrageous. He didn’t even consult us. He just went ahead and made a unilateral decision. I don’t know why he did it. Maybe he was nervous. Or maybe he was trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
New Voting Bloc Worries Gross
As the only member of the City Council left without a title after Monday night’s restlessly volatile Reorganization Meeting, Carol Gross went home disappointed, and she woke up Tuesday morning not feeling any better.
“I have serious concerns about this (reconstituted) Council,” she said. She worries that a newly formed three-person voting bloc of Alan Corlin, Steve Rose and new member Scott Malsin could be a potential threat to the conduct of business.
“I don’t see this Council having an ability to easily agree or disagree,” she said. “Instead of getting things done, I see us getting caught up in power plays. These are just going to make us powerless, a laughingstock to other communities. All of the hard work that the last Council did to gain respect will be lost.”
Calculating the data on a rotation-minded City Council, Ms. Gross said it was her turn to either be the Vice Mayor of the city or the Vice Chair of the Redevelopment Agency.
Caution Drops Dead Sluggers Win
Note to the Equipment Manager in Council Chambers: Don’t take down the boxing ring. Fight Night ain’t going away just because the City Council changed mayors.
Gary Silbiger, the new Mayor of Culver City, and Scott Malsin, the single new member of the City Council, made smashing debuts — as in smash-mouth — at Monday night’s meeting. Neither needed any time to warm up for his new role. Both came out swinging, and so did the veterans on the City Council.
Neither was ever regarded as a violet of the shrinking kind. But it was presumed that each would start out a little more cautiously.
Stiffening his spine and showing that he is going to be a hardnosed player, Mr. Malsin scored two impressive battleground victories for committee assignments while Mr. Silbiger forcefully demonstrated that the Council will be run differently now that he is, unmistakably, in charge. Mr. Silbiger, an unknown quantity as a leader as he starts his fifth year on the Council, surprised his colleagues by laying out an ambitious, full-sized, markedly Progressive agenda.
Closer to Home
(Second of two parts)
Another front on the religious battle with homosexuality is California’s school textbooks. As reported by Reuters
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060407/us_nm/rights_gays_textbooks_dc),
“Conservative groups are reacting to proposed legislation that would require school textbooks to include lessons on how gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons have helped California develop.”
A Day to Savor at Dog Park
.jpg) Friends’ member Brian Zydiak with his friends Scamper, Maggie |
Regardless of how the uneven spring weather comes up on Saturday morning, dozens of well-behaved dogs and their usually well-behaved masters will ascend one of Culver City’s loveliest hilltops for the Grand Opening of the Dog Park.
What is an opening without a parade? Much less, evidently, if it involves Culver City Park.
At 10:30, a Dog Parade will form on Jefferson Boulevard, at the western-most entrance of the park. Marchers will proceed east to Duquesne and then troop up the hill to the much-praised Dog Park, a sloping, grassless, fenced-in area that has become a magnet for Culver City residents with two legs and with four.
Speaking roles during the 11 a.m. Grand Opening ceremony will be limited to those born with two legs. Generally, they are regarded as the more articulate of the two types of species.
Council Improves Its Looks?
About 7:30 on Monday night, the graying City Council will become arguably handsomer and decidedly more youthful, by thirty years, when just-elected Scott Malsin takes over the considerable chair of the retiring Mayor Albert Vera.
The car is new, but the mileage it will get, how comfortably it will travel, how effectively it will run, are matters that lie months away from being answered.
Mr. Malsin presented himself as an open book during the campaign.
But questions necessarily remain over how he will fit in with the well-established dynamics thrown off by his four new teammates.
Black Museum Is in the Waiting Room
Typical of government-fueled projects — months, years, even lifetimes in the making — an African American library/museum planned for the Old County Courthouse, across the street from the Vets, remains in a Parade Rest position.
Clouded by layers of impersonal governmental uncertainty, the entrepreneur Avery Clayton said yesterday he doesn’t have a very precise guess about when to schedule Opening Day.
Late June/early July was the target last winter, the last time he discussed a date.
That is too early, said Mr. Clayton, who plans the enterprise as a tribute to his mother, Mayme Agnew Clayton, Ph.D, unique for her times and race, an eighty-three-year-old retired law librarian.
That is too early, said Mr. Clayton, who plans the enterprise as a tribute to his mother, Mayme Agnew Clayton, Ph.D, unique for her times and race, an eighty-three-year-old retired law librarian.
Talkin Trash, Council-Style
People who take out the trash seldom break through the news barrier, but the City Council made an exception last Monday night.
Damien Skinner, the bright young man who was the Sanitation Manager, hardly ever was mentioned, in public, during his years at City Hall.
After he left, he became a peripheral subject for discussion.
Recruited late in the winter by Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, Mr. Skinner recently was appointed to a financial position with Intel’s expanding operations in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. The campus employs ten thousand people, and an additional $3 billion facility is underway.
Silbiger, Vera: They Are Quite Different
If the sagacious lady and gentlemen of the City Council vote their colleague Gary Silbiger into the mayor’s chair, as expected, on Monday night, his one-year term will stand in sharp contrast to the just-ending tenure of the salty-tongued Albert Vera.
Mr. Vera, at the brink of retirement, alternates between Mr. Excitement and Mr. Excitable. Seldom has Mr. Silbiger displayed flashes of either excitability or excitement.
Most noticeably, the weekly heat in Council Chambers will decline by twenty degrees when Culver City changes mayors.
Look no further than this week’s meeting for the latest brick in a tall wall of proof that Mr. Silbiger’s flexible professional personality runs to the softer, crushed velvet side.