With the future of California’s local redevelopment agencies stalled while Gov. Brown, out of public view, continues chasing four Republican votes in the Legislature, the Chair of Culver City’s Redevelopment Agency, Mehaul O’Leary, left town for a working holiday.
Every year City Hall dispatches two members of the City Council to Washington, D.C. for a whirlwind 3-day visit with California representatives. Their mission: To remind U.S. senators and Congresspersons that Culver City has room in its wallet for federal dollars should any homeless money be lying around.
One of the first stops was with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who suggested that visitors should return their hands to their pockets.
“It was obvious from our first meeting, a breakfast hosted by Sen. Feinstein, that earmarks no longer are a part of our federal government, Mr. O’Leary said.
“She spoke clearly. ‘I know you all are here hopefully to find funding for very important projects in your community,’ she said. ‘But no more earmarks.’
“She was clear right out of the gate. That made it obvious from then on that if we wanted help, no one was going to give it to us.”
Just Like Sacramento?
Next stop was Housing and Urban Development “where we talked about our affordable housing situation. And how the rental voucher system does not really help us in Culver City. Even with vouchers, it is so difficult for families to find affordable housing here because of the way values are calculated. We still need people who work in Culver City to live here, and there must be a new system.”
Hardly a parochial resident, Mr. O’Leary emigrated from Ireland in the last century and is no novice when it comes to traveling.
But he was dazzled.
Mr. O’Leary who made the trip with Shelly Wolfberg, Assistant to the City Manager, when Councilman Jeff Cooper was unable to go, was glowing days later.
“I had no idea Washington D.C. would affect me the way it did,” he said.
“Oh, my God, let me tell you. In the past, I had no interest in going to Washington, D.C. I would have wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That was all.
Here Comes History, Ready or Not
“I was surprised to see that you really get a true feeling of what this country is made of. The history is phenomenal. I am not much of a history buff, but the whole time I was there, I had the feeling I was in the center of it all.
“Much different than what I thought. For some reason, I just thought it would be a bigger Sacramento, a bigger bureaucracy.
“You just feel you are in the engine room.
“It was pretty exhilarating to be there last week, especially during the buildup to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War yesterday.”
Nearly everywhere he went, tourists and locals were caught up in the Civil War fever.
As the owner of the popular Irish pub Joxer Daly’s on Washington Boulevard, near Sepulveda, Mr. O’Leary decided to take a taste test of the culture of East Coast Irish pubbery.
“When I walked in, even there, a gentleman from the American Institute of History was telling stories of the Civil War to an audience.
“It was just exhilarating the way they look at those kinds of things. In California, the Civil War seems to have been forgotten.”
