The Mayor Wins Peers’ Attention
Sometimes Mr. Silbiger’s colleagues are critical of the mayor’s choice of questions. Maybe they were this time, too, at the beginning. But the more he pressed Mr. Kane, the more interested they appeared. Simply stated, the agenda item called for a joint convening of the City Council and the Redevelopment Agency board — the identical persons — to ponder the adoption of a bureaucratically framed policy. They were asked to endorse an updated version of “Rules and Regulations for Implementation of the California Relocation Assistance Law.” Mr. Silbiger opened by asking John Fisanotti, a low-speaking City Hall staffer, to sketch “an understanding of the process” of relocation.
Is Culver City Home Sweet Home?
The mayor soon shifted his inquiries to Mr. Kane, who started strong but may not have finished so muscularly. Mr. Kane said that an about-to-be-thrown-out resident is supposed to be notified of his impending fate within 60 days after the city opens negotiations for his property. On the other end, a doomed resident is entitled to “a minimum 90-day notice,” Mr. Kane said. Steadfast in his persistence, Mr. Silbiger kept asking the blockbuster question. He never seemed fully satisfied with Mr. Kane’s replies. When you say that displaced Culver City residents will be relocated in Culver City, is that true? Mr. Silbiger asked. Critics said that Mr. Kane’s responses were “creative.” “Yes” was not among them. Neither was “no,” exactly. Mr. Kane, who has been at the wheel and on the wrong end of a gun when it comes to grilling, skillfully provided a presentable portrait of accommodation without employing precise terminology. Does that mean Culver City? Mr. Silbiger repeatedly asked. “Every effort is made to keep the person here,” Mr. Kane said at one point. “The decision is up to the person,” he said another time, which appeared to be a contradiction of his earlier assertions. Still another time, Mr. Kane testified that a doomed resident’s specific needs “may or may not fit within the bounds of Culver City.” Meanwhile, “yes” and “no” remained unacknowledged. One City Hall insider offered her take on Mr. Kane’s rejoinders. “Murray’s answers were straight,” she said, “but they weren’t fully satisfying.”
Postscript
You may remember that two years ago, the hottest story in Culver City was a dispute over how to sensitively relocate the low-income residents of some 40 mobile homes in two parks on Grandview Boulevard. Aging and poor, the unfortunate mobile homeowners were about to be uprooted by the city, supplanted by a grand new housing plan whose dimensions were blurred but nevertheless cast as inevitable. Speaking of updates, the mobile home residents remain just where they were two years ago, although maybe not for long. The city’s ambitious vision for their neighborhood has floated away, unmourned.
COUNCIL NOTES — At the behest of rookie Scott Malsin, the Vice Chair of the Redevelopment Agency board, the city affixed a fascinating punchline to a belated contract renewal with its favorite developer, Urban Partners. U. Partners is supposed to be developing the Washington-National triangle where City Hall is furiously buying up private property to clear a path for the vague dimensions of the vaguely outlined light rail station. Here was another instance of so-called government imprecision. U. Partners works for the city under what is unhelpfully called an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement, ENA in City Hall jargon. It runs for 9 months at a time. Their last agreement expired a year ago June, and it seems to have taken the parties 16 months to getting around to formalizing a renewal. This is where Mr. Malsin stepped in. Before a second Exclusive Negotiation Agreement could be essayed, he wanted U.Partners to agree to produce or find the funding, in the tens of millions, to build the permanent light rail station. If U. Partners would concur, Mr. Malsin said, that would obviate the need to go into east Culver City and build a temporary station on Westly, which the Westly neighbors emphatically do not want. The Agency board unanimously assented to Mr. Malsin’s affixation…
