[Editor’s Note: See the new Mayor’s 600-word inaugural speech below.]
[img]1845|left|Mayor Cooper||no_popup[/img]The constancy of change visited Council Chambers last evening when Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper was elected Mayor to succeed Andy Weissman, and the meter that gauges the rhythm of City Council meetings hiccupped.
The needle on the meter will wave forth and back in the coming months because the low-key manner with which the subtly humorous Mr. Weissman ran Council meetings will be a wisp of a memory when Mr. Cooper formally takes the chair for the first time at the May 13 meeting.
Fun-loving and mortgage consultant rarely are shoehorned into the same sentence, but they apply with Mr. Cooper. He is and is.
He never has been inoculated against the occasional malapropism, and its cousins.
For example, shortly after Mr. Cooper was voted into office last night, instant ex-Mayor Weissman turned to his right and said, “If I had a gavel, I would hand it to you. But a gavel doesn’t come with the office. So you are in charge.”
Mr. Cooper had not planned his very opening words. And so he announced that he was never going to adjourn the meeting. Asst. City Manager Martin Cole ventured an edit if the statement, presuming it eventually would be terminated.
Mr. Cooper always looks as he if is purely enjoying life more than anyone in the room. In the minutes leading up to the vote, he wore a partial smile of immense anticipation. The glow of the complexion on his Boy Scout-ish face, beneath the sort-of-crewcut of his black and white hair, betrayed the happy feelings of a man who hungered to celebrate, if only for a moment.
Mr. Cooper is to Mr. Weissman what Tuesday is to Saturday. Yes, both fall during the week, but they are very different from each other.
Mr. Cooper’s prepared remarks:
I want to thank my family, friends, neighbors, colleagues who have to come down to Council Chambers this evening. Thank you to everyone in the community who gets involved in our city and makes Culver City an incredible place to live and work. While we may not always agree on every issue, I am so proud to be part of a community where everyone truly cares and is willing to roll up their sleeves to improve our city.
I appreciate the support from my fellow Council members who have bestowed upon me this great responsibility to be our Mayor. Please know that all the great things that have happened to make Culver City what it is today and what it will become in the future, come from this body working in a cohesive, respectful and decisive manner. One person does not run this city. We work and get things done as a group, together with staff, businesses and residents. As your Mayor, I will always be mindful of this. I appreciate what all of you have done and continue to do individually. And I look forward to what all of us will do together to serve our city– and first and foremost our constituents.
Culver City is at a true crossroads right now. When first elected several years ago, I pledged to work towards economic stability in our city at a time when our nation was reeling from the recession. The past and current Councils have done much to address the situations facing us:
- We instituted a hiring freeze.
- We negotiated new contracts with our city’s unions so employees now make a larger contribution to their pension and healthcare benefits,
- We eliminated our own lifetime benefits and moved forward on Measure Y, which raised our local sales tax a half a cent.
The few things I have mentioned could not have happened without people understanding issues and working together. Our city employees have made many sacrifices and our citizens who overwhelmingly passed Measure Y also made this sacrifice, all in the best interests of keeping Culver City strong.
Now with a modicum of stability in these areas, I feel our biggest challenge is from the state of California, which, after dissolving our Redevelopment Agency, feels it can lay claim to major properties that have yet to be developed or redeveloped throughout our city. As Mayor, I will work with Council and staff to continue to fight hard to keep these important pieces of property under Culver City’s jurisdiction. Thank you to staff for working so hard to deal with the impacts of the loss of Redevelopment. You are clearly being asked to do more with less, and you continue to amaze me with what you have and continue to accomplish.
In my opinion, this state, which in many ways portrays itself as an environmental leader throughout our country, has failed miserably to protect our citizens and those who live near the country’s largest urban oilfield, by not having any regulations or guidelines that specifically address hydraulic fracturing. Our Council has worked hard to encourage the state to act swiftly on this issue. We will continue to lobby our local representatives to better represent us on this important issue. I assure you that, working with this Council, I will do everything within our means to continue to protect our citizens from any real or potential health hazards.
As Mayor of Culver City, I promise I will work hard with our Council, staff and the community to achieve our many goals and to face any unforeseen challenges that will invariably come up throughout the year. I am proud and humbled to be the one who will lead us.
