[img]1220|left|Nancy Goldberg ||no_popup[/img]A number to ponder as both the summer and the four-cornered November race for two School Board seats warm up:
On a golden Sunday afternoon, straddling the highest point in Culver City, in the lush green backyard of a hilltop home in Culver Crest, candidate Nancy Goldberg’s campaign co-chair Stephen Schwartz pegged $20,000 as their fund-raising goal in the three months leading up to Election Day.
Not everybody, or maybe anyone, else in the race has established such a lofty objective.
But perhaps it is in the groove, not out of line at all.
In the last School Board election two years ago, winning contenders approached that figure — Karlo Silbiger topping $19,000,Prof. Patricia Siever, $13,000.
Conversely, when Board President Scott Zeidman, up for re-election, ran the first time four years ago, he reported spending $3,000.
Matching Funds
To dramatically demonstrate the office-seeking appeal of Ms. Goldberg after 41 years teaching in Culver City classrooms, Mr. Schwartz said that an unnamed former Goldberg student promised to match however much was raised at yesterday’s crowded, bubbly official campaign opening.
The figure of $2,000 was casually mentioned as an informal objective for yesterday’s launching event of the sprint to Nov. 8.
While encouraging the glasses-clinking crowd to write out generous checks with the other hand, Mr. Schwartz mentioned that when he ran for office 37 years ago, he spent a modest $2,500.
Personalities galore crowded into the Goldberg party at the home of Michael and Judy Bauer. One of the best known and most entertaining was School Board member Steve Gourley, who is voluntarily leaving the Board at the end of the calendar year when his four-year term expires.
“I am supporting Nancy,” Mr. Gourley said, “because she has been a friend ever since I moved into the city.
“But the point is, the money. You need money to run a race. It is not a heckuva lot of money, but everybody who is here should be contributing.
“She won’t get up and say that. Schwartz will. I will. I even saw Mike Cohen around here. He might do it.
“That is what we need.”
Glancing at a table of women before him, Mr. Gourley cracked: “I have watched this nice lady write a check. I hope it is to Nancy.”
The crowd chuckled. The lady did not confirm the recipient’s name.
“I have written a check,” Mr. Gourley said. “I expect to write more.”
After confirming that Mr. Culver City, Mr. Cohen, who hosted Mr. Zeidman’s inaugural party a week earlier, was endorsing a check for the Goldberg campaign, Mr. Gourley said never mind if you left the checkbook at home.
“Give cash,” he implored.
“Every person who is at this party, everyone who contributes as much as $5, every person who walks part of a precinct, every person who has a lawn sign is in the upper 1/10th of 1 percent of all the voters in Culver City because people don’t vote. They don’t pay attention to the candidates, they don’t put up lawn signs, they don’t send checks, they don’t make phone calls, they don’t walk.
“So that,” said Mr. Gourley, “is how you can be a big macher (Yiddish for influential or a big wheel) here in Culver City.
“Get involved in one campaign. If there is one campaign everybody should be able to agree to, it is Nancy’s.”
For those who appreciate contrasting imagery, as the sun was going down, the Goldberg dollar count was going up.
(To be continued)
