Amidst pomp and preening in the golden gloom of this late June morning bathed in psychological sunshine, train service returned to Culver City – for the first time since the old days of 1953 – when the Expo Light Rail Station officially was inaugurated at 11 minutes after 9.
About 75 percent of Culver City seemed to have turned out. Among the earliest arrivals, not long after 8 o’clock, were almost-retired School District Supt. Patti Jaffe, and John (Planning Commissioner) Kuechle and his bride Nancy, celebrating their 36th wedded anniversary.
Culver City’s favorite bus rider, Ken Ruben, was the community’s best bet to be present.
And if you felt any transportation that hugged the ground was out-of-date, a charming straw-hatted serenading barbershop quartet, the Oceannaires, took us back to the last century and safely deposited us there.
Politically, there was a fitting marriage of yesterday’s City Council members, who planned to the brink but could only dream, of reality, and contemporary Councilpersons roaming the gray and spacious grounds. Former Councilwoman Carol Gross arose at 4 this morning at her distant new home in Buellton to motor back to Culver City in time.
Council alumni Alan Corlin, Steve Rose and Scott Malsin only had to travel that far psychologically as they wistfully pondered what they argued for and debated about in their days on the dais.
Mayor Andy Weissman led the current Council corps that included Expo Board delegate Mehaul O’Leary, Meghan Sahli-Wells and Jim Clarke. Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper was absent.
Community Development Director Sol Blumenfeld studied the finally-operating layout through technical prisms.
Spiffily uniformed, Police Chief Don Pedersen and Fire Chief Chris Sellers were there on casual patrol since the jurisdiction is not theirs.
A Few Poorly Chosen Words
The semi-dreaded round of mandatory speechmaking unfolded, or unraveled, 14 enjoyable minutes after the train tooted in, bearing a ton of dignitaries.
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was on the dais, flatly was bored by the exercise. Emboldened and insulated by years of feeding at the public trough, Mr. Yaroslavsky played with his cell phone while Mayor Villaraigosa, County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Mr. Weissman, Mr. O’Leary, and Metro CEO Art Leahy all took their shots at updating the Gettysburg Address.
Mr. Lincoln never felt threatened.
Mr. Villaraigosa stumbled through his shaky, unprepared remarks, delivering one of the least and most shopworn orations of his career.
For reasons probably best left to less imaginative guessers, Mr. Villaraigosa kept referring to “Mr. O’Weissman” in a weak, wishy wave at weary wittiness.
Only Mr. Weissman, in his welcome, and joke-cracking Mr. O’Leary shined.
Alluding to the notion of some visitors that the crinkly, rough-hewn parking lot may have been borrowed from a Three Stooges film or installed at dawn by prison escapees, Mr. O’Leary said:
“We have been ready for this day for a long time. Doesn’t look like it, though. The parking lot looks like a job badly done. But it was actually planned.”
Mr. Yaroslavsky missed the joke. He still was toying with his phone.
