For tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council agenda, see http://www.culvercity.org/agendas/agendas.asp
As we come to the end of Jerry Fulwood’s term as Chief Administrative Officer/City Manager for the city of Culver City, we look back on the past six years.
One person deserves an apology from a lot of people in Culver City and that is former City Councilperson Carol Gross.
Very few people probably will remember that Carol Gross was very critical of Mr. Fulwood in 2006 and 2007.
She was the lone “no” vote on the issues of changing to a city manager form of government and the change to a two-year 2007-2009 city budget.
She was not totally opposed to the city manager form of government or the entire city budget, but she was concerned with the large city management pay raises being proposed at a time when the economy already was showing signs of a decline and Mr. Fulwood presented his Perfect Financial Storm Report.
Ms. Gross’s concerns were very simple, in light of Mr. Fulwood’s Perfect Storm Report.
She wanted to know: Should we, as a city, change our whole system of government and grant these large pay raises in a time of financial uncertainty.
Obviously the proper vote should have been “no.” Carol Gross was the only one to get it right.
I remember the debate that went on during that time, about why Carol Gross was so critical of Jerry Fulwood.
Is City Manager a Victim?
The answers went from personalities, to personal alliances, to race, but never the real reasons.
I heard Carol Gross defend herself on this subject several times over the years. She would say, I have nothing against Mr. Fulwood personally, but I disagree with some of his policies and proposals.
So the question now is: Is Jerry Fulwood the victim here?
Hardly.
When Mr. Fulwood leaves Culver City after six years, he takes with him the more then $ 2 million in salary and benefits he has received from the city for his service.
In addition, he will receive $200,000-plus per year in pension benefits for the rest of his life. In comparison, the last CAO retired with a lifetime pension of $138,000-plus per year. What did the City get in return for all of this?
They received promises of a new, streamlined, more efficient city government, which is not quite the case presently. But the jury still is out on this one.
Mr. Fulwood promised we were going to fix the city’s crumbling infrastructure. We have talked about it. But now there is no money to fix it.
We had a self-insurance liability fund that had no reserves in 2005.
And Finally, ‘Yes, but…’
Mr. Fulwood told City Council members that if they tripled the amount of money going into this fund each year, we would be able to fund it annually and build a reserve to fund future obligations.
Mr. Fulwood is leaving, and city staff has just reported that the self-insurance liability fund has no reserve. Where is the money?
Finally there is the matter of a $ 4 million-plus budget shortfall going into next year. How will the city deal with that.
Carol Gross no longer is on the City Council. But she still is a part of the community, and that makes her, along with every citizen of Culver City, the victim in this case. The only person not hurt by this financial crisis is the ship’s captain. He, along with his crew, has run the city’s financial ship aground. Now the captain is getting off. Here is some advice for the current City Council:
If you are looking for a new ship captain, and if you don’t care whether he puts your ship on the rocks, or you’re just looking for someone to oversee the salvage of what you have, you probably can do it for a lot less than you paid the last captain.
Mr. Smith is a retired Culver City police officer. He may be contacted at scsinvest@sbcglobal.net
