OP-ED Articles

     According to recent comments by in thefrontpageonline.com Susan Deen, one of the leaders of the opposition to Measure V, parts of the proposed new Charter are long-needed and she would avidly support the changes. 

     But there are parts of the new Charter she does not like:   

     The city manager form of government, the elimination of elected department heads and treating all of the members of the city’s executive management equally. 

     So what’s left?  The table of contents?  The definitions?

     The current Charter was adopted by the voters of Culver City in 1947. 

          City Councilwoman Carol Gross sniffed on Monday when she heard that seventy-five supporters participated in Commissioner Jeff Cooper’s picnic/rally on Saturday at Culver City Park.

          As the leading zealot on the City Council for retaining the new Skateboard Park in the grassy area, near Jefferson Boulevard, she archly declared:

          “It does not matter to me how many people were there. Seventy-five people or seventy-five hundred will not change the facts.

          “My principal motivation is protecting the well-being of our children. That does not, it cannot, take second place.”

            Armed with dignity, a portfolio of concrete explanations and solutions, a promise of transparency and a peace-making attitude, Steve Rush, the vice president of a much-villified oil drilling company, will walk into a den of his harshest critics early next month when he meets with the Board of Directors of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Assn.

            “Our main job will be to educate them about our business and, hopefully, demystify what we do,” the Plains Exploration & Production Co. official told thefrontpageonline.com.

            “But before that, we will emphasize that we understand the importance of improving communications with residents. We are trying to be more sensitive than we have been.

            “We want to make sure that even though what happened was extremely rare, and not at all dangerous, we want them to know who we are, how long we have been around, what our mission is, that we are environmentally sensitive, and that we are diligently working on mitigation measures.”

(Editor’s Note: Culver City history may be repeating itself, in a way, this spring. If the Charter Reform proposal, Measure V, passes on April 11, City Treasurer Crystal Alexander will seek to widen the voice her office has in City Hall’s financial affairs, those presently controlled by the Chief Administrative Officer Jerry Fulwood. On Dec. 10, 1992, a little more than thirteen years ago, before she came to City Hall, Ms. Alexander argued in favor of another kind of consolidation for the City Treasurer’s office. Below is the newspaper essay she wrote for that campaign, and following that, Ms. Alexander has appended her contemporary comments.)

 

            I am in favor of the proposal to consolidate the duties of the City Clerk and the City Treasurer, and offer a professional opinion on the issue. I hold no personal stake or interest in the outcome of this debate except as an ordinary citizen of Culver City.

            I have worked in public finance for eleven years, currently for Beverly Hills as Budget and Auditor Manager. I served on the Public Finance Advisory Committee, and had the pleasure of consulting with many of Culver City’s finance professionals.

            The field of public finance has become complex over the last decade.  There are strict guidelines on how much the city can spend, how much it can earn, how it can earn it — the list grows annually.

• For related comments, see Letters section

            With a do-over  vote on the disputed location of the new Skateboard Park tentatively scheduled for Monday, March 6, City Councilman Alan Corlin — tongue lodged in cheek — said last night that he was guilty as charged when Councilmember Carol Gross accused him of making the park a warm potato because Election Day looms. 
            In the six weeks since the original vote on Culver City Park , Mr. Corlin has been staging a one-man, daily, unrelenting, virtual door to door campaign to overturn the outcome and change the venue to a nearby paved area. 
            The arrows and slings that the Councilman and the Councilwoman vehemently exchange are heartfelt. 

            When the editor of  this newspaper inquired about a strategically positioned blank space in the School District’s official recording of a School Board meeting — where remarkable comments were made about a Board member not present — he was told the recording equipment was antiquated and sometimes fails.

            Is it a sheer coincidence that the single crucial dialogue of the  evening, now under heavy scrutiny, is missing?

            Or could the tape that serves as a public record for the School District have been tampered with?

            Tapes fail sometimes, and so do recorders. It is possible that happened here, but not probable.  

            The presumably dead possibility of changing the prospective Skateboard Park from the grassy Upper Level of Culver City Park to the plainer Lower Level poked its dusty, ghoulish head out of the grave on Tuesday night.

            Over the pooh-poohing of City Councilperson Carol Gross, Councilman Alan  Corlin, the driving force for switching the location, pulled off the unlikely.

He convinced all three of his colleagues who were present to agree to officially reopen the issue.

It is expected to be included on a City Council agenda in early March.

Ms. Gross, a foursquare opponent of moving the location or reopening the piping hot subject, had a few words afterward for her colleague Mr. Corlin.