One of the delights of community election season is its unpredictability.
Beneath a half moon hovering over the Julian Dixon Library early Sunday evening, former Mayor Ed Wolkowitz and his wife Marla, former School Board member, were hosting a Meet ‘n Greet for PTA maven and School Board candidate Laura Chardiet at their brilliantly illumined creekside home.
Since the Wollowitzes’ living room, dining room — and perhaps darkened porch — were filled with more onetime School Board members than celery sticks on the snacks/desserts table, this appeared to be the ideal backdrop for an intensely serious conversation.
Indian Signals
To ignite a conversation, Ms. Chardiet remarked to a visitor she had seen him emerging from a Samosa House restaurant.
She must have been mistaken, the visitor said. He neither likes nor consumes Indian fare, which gave the perky Ms. Chardiet a handy opening.
“I lovvvve food from around the world,” she bubbled. “I used to work at an Irish pub that was called the Cricket Club and featured Indian food. I served curry, and I would bring it with me when I came home late at night.”
Growing up in a large family of modest means in San Diego, Indian cooking was exotic and strongly appealing to Ms. Chardiet.
As a child, she was not a picky eater. Couldn’t afford to. As the fifth of six children, “I ate whatever was on my plate,” because neither options nor alternative dishes was available in stretched household.
Four months into a campaign that ends five weeks from tomorrow, on Nov. 8, Ms. Chardiet — who has a strong PTA profile and is in the process of developing a community-wide resumé — is surprised by the large number of parents “actively working for the benefit of our schools. Outside of the traditional organizations, so many others are working for the benefit of our schools.
“I have been attending Chamber of Commerce events,” she said. “I was surprised how well-versed they are in what is happening in CCUSD, even giving opinions on what they think should be happening.
Contributing Businesses
“We have a lot of support from the business community, especially individual businesses.
“I don’t think the general community realizes how strong the support is.:
Active in ground-level school affairs from the moment her two children entered kindergarten, Ms. Chardiet has observed the support for years. When her children were at LaBallona Elementary and she was drumming up interest in a silent auction event, “I would walk up and down the streets, enter a business and say ‘Hi, my kids are across the street (at LaBallona), we are having a silent auction, and will you donate?’ Eighty-five percent of the businesses said ‘Yes, what can we do?’
“When you see it as a candidate, trying to go everywhere, it really makes you grateful. You realize how wonderful the city is.
“I never realized how wide the support was. I only knew what it was in my neighborhood. Now as I campaign, it is really amazing.”
Temptations
For Ms. Chardiet, an educator married to a teacher and born of a teacher who was named California Teacher of the Year 41 years ago, the question was — what is the difference between operating as a PTA executive, which she has been for years, and now seeking to expand her appeal as a community-wide seeker of elective office?
Not a drop of hesitation from the contender known as an unquestionable bundle of bottomless knowledge and energy.
“People who know me, friends of mine, who have worked with me, they really support my campaign,” said Ms. Chardiet, sounding prosaic but warming up for a punchline.
“They will say to me, ‘Go up there and campaign, Laura. But remember, you have to be a little less goofy than you normally are,” and she couldn’t repress a gentle laugh.
Here came the lilting side of Ms. Chardiet.
“I have to tell you, it is so hard for me not to speak in a crazy accent or break into song,” and you could see temptation making major gains.
“I have to restrain myself,” she said, smiling roundly and laughing lightly before segueing seamlessly into a Russian dialect that may have been spoken that evening in the Kremlin.
Ms. Chardiet taught Russian for a half-dozen years, and to a semi-practiced ear, she might have been mistaken for a native.
Her favorite is imitating a young lady from Dixie, which she employed routinely in her college days.
For a moment, she could have been successfully auditioning for an update of “Gone with the Wind.”
On target for her various campaign deadlines, Ms. Chardiet realizes, though, that “you never can meet enough people.”
She knocks on doors seven days a week
Her opening strategy was to accent the neighborhoods near Culver City’s schools.
Time for one more story.
“A lot of times,” the puckish Ms. Chardiet said, “you will knock on a door and hear a voice say ‘Who is it?’
“I am so tempted to say, ‘I’m just a little redheaded axe murderer who has come here to kill you!’
“But,” and she almost looked sad, “I can’t say that.”
Critical question for the chuckling Ms. Chardiet: Has she said it yet?
“No, but I have thought it.”
See laura4culvercitykids.com
