First in a series

Re “We Should Be Allowed to Serve Longer Than 8 Years, Cooper Says”

[img]1305|right|Andy Weissman||no_popup[/img]Andy Weissman, who will be forced from his City Council chair by term limits next year, holds strong feelings about the prickly subject.

Typical of Mr. Weissman’s problem-solving approach, his muscular mental maneuvers apply to both the cons and the pros.

Since Council colleague Jeff Cooper yesterday introduced and refreshed the argument against term limits, the buzz about restrictions has aggressively resurfaced.

From the hefty chorus of onetime Culver City politicians who have been yanked from an office they thoroughly enjoyed, there may be no more eloquent or career-invested spokesperson than the 65-year-old Mr. Weissman.

Since the mid-1980s, 30 years, half of his mature life, he has been as visible to Culver City residents as any architectural icon – and much more involved in the community’s day-to-day life.

Mr. Weissman has not been a popular permanent presence because he is a hungry politician eager to reach and perch forever on a ladder’s uppermost rung.

Not even close.

Rather, because of the paternal wisdom and enviable breadth of comprehension he unfailingly brings to disputable topics and to harshly complicated ones – such as term limits.

He is the knife slicing through melting butter, painlessly penetratingly probing.

When the Council confronts issues too dense to swiftly interpret, Mr. Weissman sears through dark labyrinths and objectively distills the most complex corners. Deftly, he produces common-sense solutions that are equally palatable and paternalistic.

Thirty years of this unique keenness will clang to an end in 15 months because…

Well, the because is the heart of the problem.

(To be continued)