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About 20 persons attended last night’s meeting of the near-Downtown Gateway Neighborhood Assn.
They must be described as authentic activists. The subject was the process that a community goes through to develop a General Plan, a blueprint for its immediate future —pretty dry fare for all but the hardiest of Culver City junkies.
Where, you may inquire, were the other 39, 980 residents of our community? Drying their hair. Wetting their hair. Trimming their hair. Admiring their hair. Changing the color of their hair? Anything to justify avoiding learning how to formulate a General Plan.
They are parochialists, along with 99 percent of the planet. They are Nimbys.
If a City Hall project does not directly affect a resident’s property or his daily life, you can build 15 Taj Mahals atop each other on the roof of Trader Joe’s, and you never will lure the fellow to a community meeting. He will remove his fingernails first. That is all right. It is the norm.
Still, a certain miniature claque within Culver City — they could easily squeeze into my car — saddled with robust lungs and empty lives, keeps insisting, at least one night every week, that by golly, Murgatroyd, not enough people know about this here meetin’ we are participatin’ in.
Are they exhibitionists? Do they need a certain-sized crowd to assemble before they are motivated to perform? The monkeys at the zoo don’t even need a large audience. A crowd of one will do.
This Is Not Breaking News
Memo to the boors: This is the way civilization has operated for however many years you believe earth has been in business. It is sweet of you to be concerned that your neighbors should expand their minds and, by the way, think exactly as you do down to the final exclamation point.
Since Culver City subscribes to American-style democracy, even if some noisy people would like to alter that policy, there is no political equivalent of quality control. Boorish people cannot be shut down because they are repeating themselves for the 763rd time.
If you have attended a neighborhood meeting in recent times, you know these advocates for chaos have shown themselves to be the slowest learners north of Sesame Street. Leave town this afternoon, come back in 20 years, and they will be shlepping the same floppy-eared shpiel, as if they have been programmed by their handlers, which probably is a concept we should investigate.
He Knows the Gang
Last winter when Steve Rose still was on the City Council, he was growing more nettled by the week with the drum-banging over public notification. Mr. Rose made what may come to be regarded as a landmark observation. “There are about 20 community activists in Culver City, and I know all of them by name,” he said.
Mr. Rose should recognize them. They attended every meeting in which he participated. They know what color of suit City Manager Jerry Fulwood wears each day to the office and they recalled the style of shirt former Mayor Alan Corlin wore to every community meeting.
I admire those 20, and I wish I could attend most, maybe not all, of the meetings that interest them.
A year ago this week, thanks to cerebral activism, the South Sepulveda teardown and rebuild, which seemed to offend everybody who didn’t work for Bob Champion, was killed, thanks first to the ardor of Loni Anderson.
Activists tried their darnedest to kill or shrinkwrap the Entrada Office Tower, and they failed. So far. Activists in the Hayden Tract have been stirred up for 7 or 8 months over a 4-story office building, and it is not yet clear whether the outcome will resemble Entrada or South Sepulveda.
Giving Heavenly Thanks
Thank heaven for activists because they are as vital to the heartbeat of Our Town.
But we do not say thank heaven for the narrow-minded, agenda-driven doorslammers who interrupt important events in their lives to grump, “Not enough people have been notified.” Here is $10 to catch a movie this afternoon.
Two months ago, 4 out of 5 Culver City voters stayed home on Election Day when they were invited to choose three new members of the City Council. When the 9 candidates gathered throughout February and March for forums, you could have delivered the crowds in 2 cars. Now, may we get back to, ahem, the people’s business?
