Culver City traded mayors last night — Syrian/Libyan/Yemini/Egyptian/Bahraini-style — with the City Council waving farewell to easy-going, low-key Chris Armenta after a one-year term and “electing” the more intense Mehaul O’Leary.
Adhering to an agenda purposely shorn of suspense, except for Mr. O’Leary, hearts did not beat any faster in Council Chambers than they do at a traffic signal in a hick town at midnight.
There was more drama in Damascus at the turn of the century when Bashir Assad unanimously elected himself to succeed his dead father as dictator.
Excitement was confined to a four-neighbor protest of a new and instant second-story addition of a property at 4213 Vinton Ave. Complaining that their sky-blue view has been inkblotted and their privacy torpedoed, residents of Motor Avenue filed poignant but perhaps pointless objections.
A building permit was issued on March 3 for the seemingly instant high-rise, and Lyndon Stambler asked the city to halt construction. Suggesting the property owner may have circumvented city code, he said fellow residents “were blindsided.”
“Our tranquility was shattered in early March,” said Terry Silberman.
Burt Bochner brought a different perspective. He said the view from the new addition beams directly into his Jacuzzi, “where, I assure you, I don’t wear a bathing suit,” provoking a laugh from the large audience.
Covering the Other Side
Describing the new top to her neighbor’s garage as “a disgrace,” Elaine Courtney earned a counter-laugh. She told the Council that view also invades her Jacuzzi where “I do wear a bathing suit.”
City Hall officials, including Sol Blumenfeld, the Community Development Director, offered scant succor to the petitioners. One source told the newspaper that “the problem is the code, the way it was written.” The neighbors’ plight appears to be a fait accompli.
The Culver City Building Code may have been designed by a relative of the person who wrote the City Council’s Self-Election Code, nicknamed “How to Choose a Mayor in 172½ Fairly Arcane Lessons.”
Until several years ago, there was a scramble up and down the dais each spring to select a new mayor. However, after newcomer Andy Weissman was chosen by his colleagues ahead of the veteran Gary Silbiger, Mr. Silbiger said a fairer method must be found.
Mr. Weissman and Mr. Armenta huddled, and eventually their ideas were reviewed and refined by former City Manager Mark Scott, and approved by the Council.
Anyone Confused?
The complexion of the complicated calculation remains devilishly elusive.
On the night he was to hand over his gavel, Mr. Armenta opened by nominating Mr. O’Leary for Mayor and second-year Councilman Jeff Cooper as Vice Mayor.
Mr. Weissman begged the Mayor’s pardon. According to the latest incarnation of How to Elect a Mayor rules, he said, sixth-year Councilman Scott Malsin should be nominated for Vice Mayor because Mr. Malsin is the longest serving member never to have held the office of Vice Mayor. The Vice Mayor automatically becomes Mayor the following year.
Before Mr. Malsin was elected chair of the amorphous Redevelopment Agency and Mr. Cooper his Vice Chair, Mr. O’Leary delivered a rather elaborate inauguration speech.
The style of Mr. Armenta, a casual and quick in-and-out guy during his term, stood in contrast to Mr. O’Leary.
The Irishman has been pondering his elevation for months, developing his speech while gradually adapting a more introspective approach as spokesman-to-be for City Hall.
What Is Short?
He drew his first laugh — from the word-counters and the rest of the crowd — when he said, “I have a short speech prepared.”
Admitting that he previously had considered the Mayor’s role “too lightly,” Mr. O’Leary said, “I began to understand the importance of this position to the people of Culver City. It took me many conversations to understand the importance. The conversations made me look at it differently.
“As a Council member, I have been opinionated. As a Council member, I have spoken to the press and given my take on subjects. But now I understand as Mayor I will be representing the city. In that role, I will advise the press that you will be hearing the voice of the city for the coming year and not necessarily my opinion.”
An immigrant from Ireland in the last century, Mr. O’Leary said as Mayor he would need to expand his familiarity with the 94-year history of Culver City, which led him to the works of city historian Julie Lugo Cerra.
The Mayor was up to lengthy details surrounding the year 1921 when one Mary Lou Cardone, seated at the front of Council Chambers, stood, unembarrassedly, to leave. The time — if not the speaker —was racing toward 8 o’clock.
Appearing stunned, Mr. O’Leary halted and wondered what prompted her sudden exit.
Without slowing her brisk pace, Ms. Cardone said, “I have to go watch ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”
That seemed an appropriate denouement.
