Mehaul O’Leary, the greenest of all City Council members – he was green before it was a politically correct requisite – has been back for more than a month from the homeland, and you may pardon his homesickness.
“Ireland was as green as ever,” Mr. O’Leary recalled with a maximal grin of his nine-day visit.
On his first trip home in five years, his first mentionable joy was to hug and kiss “four nieces and nephews I never had seen. They were between the ages of 1 and 4.”
Mr. O’Leary visited three of his four siblings, two sisters and a brother. The remaining brother is a fellow American, living in South Bend as the head coach of Notre Dame’s rugby team.
Y, Oh Y
Like his teammates on the City Council, which officially has been idle for the past month, Mr. O’Leary has been consulting and preparing for the major Measure Y campaign that starts Monday afternoon at 1 o’clock at the Senior Center.
Polling that began almost four months ago across Culver City has assured Council members that the proposed half-cent sales tax increase “to maintain the present level of city services” is a near cinch to pass on Election Day, Nov. 6.
“I am confident,” said Mr. O’Leary, “that if I get into a conversation with anyone regarding the need for this to pass, I will be able to sell Measure Y pretty well.
Critical Situation
“We are in dire straights. All of this money will go locally.
“I cannot imagine how we would get out of our (budget) deficit without it. It’ll make things much easier when it passes.”
Mr. O’Leary is “very confident” the sales tax will be approved.
Since former city commissioner Marcus Tiggs’s essay of opposition to the sales tax increase (“Despite Good Intentions, I Am Opposed to Measure Y in Its Present Form”) appeared on Aug. 22, his name has been invoked in many Measure Y dialogues about town, including the present one.
Centrally, Mr. O’Leary objects to Mr. Tiggs’s “implication that we haven’t done enough (to solve the deficit), and that is absolutely ridiculous.
“There is no basis for that whatsoever. I am adamant about that. Absolutely no foundation. I wish had been able to speak to him before he wrote his article so he could have shown me what he sees that I am missing.
“Far as I am concerned, we are cut to the bone. There is no fat. All departments are being affected. I don’t see where else we could have tightened up,” Mr. O’Leary said.
The Councilman said Mr. Tiggs and a friend of Mr. Tiggs “are the only two people I know of who have voiced an opposing opinion.
“Everybody I have spoken to regarding the article has been surprised by what he said.”
