First of two parts
[img]2333|right|Christopher Patrick King||no_popup[/img]They were joking about age this afternoon at the Senior Center – when the mistress of ceremonies was taking questions from the audience at a City Council candidates forum, she signaled “The lady with gray hair,” and dozens of graying women chuckled – but when the fun died down, The Kid stood tall.
Christopher Patrick King, 24 to 34 years younger than all three rivals in the April 8 race, established himself before a serious crowd of certain voters as a contender to be taken soberly.
He is up against a tall, foreboding wall. The incumbents, Mayor Jeff Cooper Councilman Jim Clarke, are defending the two available seats, and Gary Abrams rounds out the field.
Nothing was wrong with the answers of Mr. King’s opponents, but the Fox Hills resident’s responses showed that he is devoting the winter – if not last autumn – to his homework.
Appearing before loyal voters – registered and informed – Mr. King played to his Senior Center venue.
No time for light family stories that many candidates favor.
Since he looks his youthful age, during the round of introductions, Mr. King, a stranger to them, talked about people they could identify with. With the charismatic warmth of a crackling fireplace, he spoke intimately, lovingly of his Italian grandparents, accenting the enduring rudimentary values they instilled in him.
No wisecracks from him. No flippancy. No time for lightness. Levity later, maybe, after the crowd goes home.
He has been fashioning a reputation as a serious student of the contemporary community and its history. He has pored over issues – the obvious and even the marginal ones, grasped their history, formed firm perspectives.
Setting Precedents
Mr. King has been edgy in a creative way that none of his rivals has shown an inclination to match –staging a purely hip fundraising event in the Helms District and sending out his first in a promised series of YouTube videos where he threshes through critical issues.
Every response was a thoroughly researched one No one-of-the-boys attitude. The mortgage broker said last year, and he has made it inarguably clear in outings to date, that he is in the race to win, not gain seasoning.
The first question bemoaned the loss of the Fourth of July fireworks show last summer.
After Mr. Cooper, a longtime member of the sponsoring Exchange Club, said that returning to the high school field seems unlikely and that talks are in progress with West Los Angeles College, Mr. King stepped in, not with a me-too response but a planned one, brief, pointed.
“Hopefully we can figure out a way to work with the high school,” he said. “I have heard that matting might be able to be placed on the new (Chabola Field) where they can still shoot fireworks, have people on the grass and still have it at school.”
Mr. King perhaps was strongest when answering a gentleman in the crowd who complained that the Expo site is overparked, and what is the City Council going to do about it?
Being Imaginative
“While this (project) has been successful, as you can see from the parking lot, Culver City deserves to be more than a parking lot for the light rail,” he said. “We deserve to be a destination. I would like to see us be more aggressive in how we are getting people from that light rail station into Downtown Culver City.
“Downtown Culver City is great, and I want to see the rest of our community blooming the way Downtown has.
“We can get people into Downtown in a way that is inexpensive. We can do what is called a pedicab system. The pedicab system was utilized well with Fiesta La Ballona. People park at Sony Studios.Pedicab is where you have one person drive the bicycle in front, and two people are in the back. It’s a private business,” suggested Mr. King. “So we can bring a private business into Culver City. That way it’s not only sustainable, it’s a way to get people from the Expo line into Downtown Culver City.”
(To be continued)
