Last weekend a cheap hit piece was distributed throughout Culver City by a group of unidentified individuals hiding behind a name “Love Living in Culver City.”
This flyer once again brings out the worst in politics, cowardly people crouching behind an unknown group.
Some candidates posted the piece on their Facebook page and then disavowed it!
Giving publicity to the hit piece by posting it is encouraging this shameful activity. As president/CEO of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce, I am proud of our record of an open endorsement practice by inviting all candidates to our forums, publishing the forum rules and following them.
Since we are in the middle of a City Council election campaign, endorsements are coming out of the woodwork. Many are from organizations that only appear during the election cycle or when their own interests are being brought to the forefront.
The issue that concerns me most is that these organizations state that they are for or against different issues or candidates without ever telling the public who their membership consists of on a regular basis, the funding of their organization or their endorsement process.
The Culver City Chamber is proud to have four of the seven City Council candidates as members. Besides Goran Eriksson and Scott Wyant, Thomas Small and Marcus Tiggs are Chamber members.
The Chamber advocates for business interests in Culver City, something I am personally proud of doing for over 29 years.
We volunteer at and support local schools, their charitable organizations, assist the homeless and those in need through support of SAVES, Backpack for Families, and ECF, along with giving an annual high school scholarship and assisting in the Middle School’s eighth grade assessment graduation program
Your Culver City Chamber’s membership is as diverse as its population, the Helms Bakery Building, five new car dealers, The Culver Studios, the four major hotels in the city, Westfield Culver City along with an array of smaller organizations that have found many benefits from Chamber membership including the Culver-Palms YMCA, Temple Akiba, Antioch University, Ballona Creek Renaissance and Walk ‘n Rollers.
If the Chamber would not provide this wide array of services, who would?
Mr. Rose may be contacted at ssssteve@culvercitychamber.com
Rose says it all, “The Chamber advocates for business interests in Culver City,” with absolutely NO mention of the residents’ interests. His attitude is that his fellow-travelers will build it bigger and higher, and let the peasants deal with the problems of added traffic, parking and pollution.
Rose lists what the Chamber “voluntarily” does for the City. Then he asks, “If the Chamber would not provide this wide array of services, who would?” Is this is a thinly-veiled threat that, unless the two Chamber candidates (Ericksson and Wyant), who are targeted in the flyer, are not elected to the City Council, the Chamber will take its ball and go home?
Rose further states, “Last weekend a cheap hit piece was distributed throughout Culver City by a group of unidentified individuals…. [C]owardly people crouching behind an unknown group.” Notice that he avoids responding to any issue that those people raised. In debate, it’s called ad hominem—attacking an opponent’s character, rather than answering an argument.
He asks about the funding of those unidentified individuals. We looked into the matter. If they solicit more than $2,000, they must register. There is no registration. Thus, it seems that they are a grass-roots effort—the villagers are attacking the monster’s castle.
Rose states that four candidates are Chamber members, but fails to mention that only two—Ericksson and Wyant—are long-term, hardcore Chamber members.
Here is where I come down on this business of the good the Chamber does for the city: great, but let’s not fool anyone into thinking that when it endorses candidates for the City Council the Chamber is not interested in controlling the Council for its own ends—business first and foremost. We need businesses in Culver City, but we don’t need a Council that is controlled by the Chamber. Why indeed if the Chamber is such a plus for the city it does not support candidates endorsed by the the city’s most progressive organizations? If you want a Council that puts apartment owners ahead of renters, business development above the residents impacted by that development, tavern owners above its low-paid workers, and business owners that want to gobble up residential parking spaces, then the Chamber is your lobby group. And so far as folks handing out flyers suggesting that it is time to end the Chamber’s control of the City Council, well isn’t this democracy at work. Normally non-political residents and neighbors are the folks, I suspect, handing out flyers who want their voices not to be drowned out by the Chamber, which is the most powerful special interest group in the city.