The Way He Was
Colorful of style, he favored rhetorical flourishes that invariably attracted comment — just as planned, cynics said. Much about him was unorthodox, contrary to many traditions associated with small-town politicians. Equally at home in a crowd of two or two thousand, Mr. Vera has stood at the vortex of city politics for a decade and a half.
The story of his Italian birth and journey to America at the age of fifteen became the most frequently recycled tale in Westside politics. He quickly learned to turn his sometimes-mangled approach to the English language to his great cultural advantage. As planned, cynics said again.
Whether the other four City Council members were from Pluto or Kentucky, no one knew or cared. But the most casual watcher of City Hall politics knew that Mr. Vera was a son of Italy, even if that watcher tuned in only one night of the year.
Author and recipient of the most productive public relations campaign the community has seen, he was never outfoxed by supposedly slicker teammates. Shrewdly, he never let a day end without reminding City Council colleagues and mundane citizens that “I am for the people. Whatever is best for them.”
“I am for the little guy” was his unchangeable mantra.
News About Fulwood
In one of the stirring ironies of this suddenly altered political campaign, Mr. Vera’s announcement came on the eve of a more prosaic bulletin from City Hall:
Thefrontpageonline.com has learned that Chief Administrative Officer Jerry Fulwood’s new three-year agreement will be announced any edition. The low-key Mr. Fulwood frequently has been cast on the opposing side in debates with Mr. Vera and his favorite ally Councilperson Carol Gross for the past three years.
Meanwhile, Mr. Vera said that his decision to retire was made only in consultation with Mrs. Vera.
According to the mayor, she placed the verdict in his lap. “She told me ‘Albert, you know I never have stopped you from doing what you want.’ And I told her, ‘That’s what I want.’
“Let me put it this way, if my efforts help her, it’s worth it.
“I can, and I will, still help the city. Thank God I made many friends out there.”
He is not going away. “I don’t have to be on the dais to help the city,” he said.
Accused sometimes of striking out on his own, contrary to tradition and City Council policy, the proudly independent Mr. Vera always maintained that his action was for the betterment of the city. Exact reasons for and against certain acts had a tendency to become lost in a fog of words.
Mr. Vera said that he will remain active on the City Council each Monday night until April, when his successor — either contender Scott Malsin or Mehaul O’Leary — is formally seated.
He left the door ajar for a possible return to Culver City politics in time for the next election two years from April. “There is a possibility,” he said. “If God gives me health and my wife is well, there are a lot more things to be done in Culver City.”
Health Not at Its Peak
Employing a phrase from his native Italian, Mr. Vera candidly conceded that his physical condition was just so-so. As a business and property owner here, and a rancher on far-flung spreads in the CentralValley, he scarcely allows himself time to lie down at night.
Arguably, he is the most celebrated and charismatic figure ever to enter City Hall. To say he is without critics or detractors, though, is like saying Los Angeles is without smog. But it is a tribute to his iconic stature that the sharper the criticism the likelier it is to be muted, behind drawn blinds.
He stood as close to being regarded as unbeatable as a hometown office-seeker ever has.
Mr. Vera’s discreetly essayed departure from political life was an unfolding drama that played out over a period of hours before a tiny inner circle.
But once he decided his course, an untamable firestorm of bulletins about the Vera decision furiously swept across the community. Email was upstaged by word of mouth, fitting since Mr. Vera is famously anti-technology in his personal life.
By the time the mayor rang up his fellow members of the City Council on Saturday morning the news was only slightly fresher than the Lindbergh kidnapping.
Mr. Vera was coming off a night of sleep with decidedly mixed results. In the hours that have followed, he acknowledged that the feeling has not gotten any better.
Several times, he said that “this was the right decision.” But inside, he suggested, the ache lives.
He Promised to File
As the 5:30 filing deadline approached last Friday, Mr. Vera’s enormously stressed heart was thumping as if two dinosaurs were dancing on his chest.
As the afternoon wore on, unbeknownst to perhaps all but three people, perspiring pressure mounted on the mayor.
Dep. City Clerk Ela Valladeres was in regular correspondence with Mr. Vera as the City Hall clock climbed inexorably toward half after five.
“I know, I know,” he told her each time. “I will be there.”
Surely no Culver City politician in modern times has immersed himself as fully in the trappings of political life, every breath, every hour, as Mr. Vera. Breathing and politics tie for No.1 in his life, and breathing may fall to No. 2.
He was always on. And usually available, at his favorite hangout, the cubby-sized office in the rear of Sorrento Italian Market, his business for nearly forty-five years.
Evidently, only Ms. Valladeres and Mrs. Vera realized the depth of his agonizingly emotional one-man wrestling match.
He looked at his wife, at his watch, at his heart.
“I’ll be there, I’ll be there,” the mayor repeatedly assured the deputy city clerk. “I will be there before 5:30.”
But when he hung up, “should I or shouldn’t I?” haunted his aching bones.
Mr. Vera kept remembering how many people were counting on him. He kept remembering what he has frequently said in later years, that he never would call retreat.
Everybody in town knew that he was running in the April election. No one at City Hall doubted that he would beat both challengers for his seat if he never uttered a syllable during the campaign.
Culver City voters were convinced he would run if he had to walk back to shore from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Passionate Vera disciples still will take bets that he can walk on water. Without getting his feet wet.
Finally, thirty minutes before the filing deadline, the anguished mayor, who only lives minutes from City Hall, informed Ms. Valladeres that he would not be a candidate.
The Right Call
“The hardest decision I ever have had to make,” Mr. Vera told thefrontpageonline.com. “But it was the right one.”
For more than two years, Mrs. Vera, who submits to dialysis three times a week, has suffered from scleraderma. This is a multiple system disorder that causes change in the skin and in internal organs, a medical source said.
“The scleraderma has been acting up again,” Mr. Vera said. “Really been bad the last two weeks.”
Physically, friends say, the slender Mrs. Vera is a profile in courage herself. To the amazement of Sorrento customers, and probably doctors, she reports for duty at Sorrento, behind the main counter. This morning, she was working the counter before leaving for four demanding hours of dialysis.
“I made the decision,” Mr. Vera said, “because I am needed at home and so that my wife can stay home.”
Punishing waves of tragedy recently have washed over the tough — and finally bending — body of the most popular politician Culver City has known.
“The crises that have confronted him the last couple of years would have driven an ordinary man to the sidelines, but not Albert, never Albert,” friend and foe have concurred, privately and publicly.
When his step-son Ralph died unexpectedly two and a half months ago, Mr. Vera vowed, as he had all along, to run for a fourth term.
Even as Mrs. Vera’s health continued in decline, he organized a full-fledged campaign team, headed by one of his oldest friends, Reba Yudess.
No one who has watched him for the twenty years he officially has been a member of the City Hall team or during his forty years in public life picked up the faintest clue this verdict was coming.
Mr. Vera was a Civil Service Commission member for eight years during the 1980s. He was first elected to the City Council in 1992, and he handily won re-election in 1996. That campaign solidified his reputation as the best-ever votegetter.
By a provision in the city’s term-limits regulation that passed during his first campaign, Mr. Vera had to sit down for two years following his second term. He rebounded with the bounce of a kid one-third his age in ’02. On Election Night, to celebrate his impressive comeback victory, Mr. Vera presided over a gigantic party featuring Culver City’s most important personalities.
The upper floor of George Petrelli’s restaurant was brilliantly lighted. The gilded ceiling looked as high and bright as the heavens themselves.
The two paisonos, Mr. Petrelli and Mr. Vera, never seemed more than inches away from each other.
For a moment that night, the star and the dazzling leaders who came to praise him were sure that the music never would stop.
Maestro, please.
