Down to her last 120 high-spirited hours in office, high-spirited Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells figuratively galloped into the center ring of Culver City today at the noon hour on a vanilla-colored smartly stepping steed and declared victory.
No one contested her call.
At the 35th Luncheon, she pictured – literally and figuratively — her image-conscious hometown as being at the pinnacle of its trophy-case full of accomplishments.
Thirty-nine minutes is 20 more than most of the 380 diners were prepared to swallow, hungry or not.
But this is what distinguishes her from a number of predecessors. A vibrant progressive ideologue with a strong streak of pragmatism, Ms. Sahli-Wells has matured into a fully blossomed politician during her year as the opposite of Hizzoner — Her Honor? Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Not even a tinkle.
Unlike all of her predecessors who planted themselves at a lectern and read to their audience, Ms. Sahli-Wells, mirroring a savvy athlete, used the whole stage.
She paced, she joked, she was as loose as a 39-minute speaker should be, to shoo away her listeners’ minds from thinking about the jewelry wrapped around their wrists.
She framed Culver City as an organic community resplendent with national awards, an envied nationwide reputation for safety, technological and human advancement, brimming with desirability.
With vividity and giant screen video backup, Ms. Sahli-Wells characterized Culver City as a sui generis community that is, at the same time, compact, broadly comfortable, futuristic and yet competitively progressive.
Culver City has executed a rare feat, she suggested, by intertwining a deep love for its history while simultaneously laser-focusing both eyes on tonight and tomorrow.
The youngest mayor in recent times, Ms. Sahli-Wells said that she and her husband Karim Sahli have found unmatched fulfillment by raising their two young sons in the near-Downtown home where she grew up.
Looping and lacing the strands of her goal-driven agenda through a laudatory maze of civic and personal accomplishments the last 12 months, “Mayor Meghan,” as City Manager John Nachbar identified her, took her Mayor’s Luncheon audience on a 39-minute top-down joyride that won her a roomful of plaudits.
Following the grandson of city founder Harry Culver onto the stage at the DoubleTree by Hilton required a generous dash of showmanship, which Ms. Sahli-Wells was pleased to winningly display.
With Culver City’s 100th birthday celebration scheduled to launch a year from September, how fitting to welcome Chris Wilde, the beloved Mr. Culver’s progeny.
Mr. Wilde made two notable indentations on the day.
He described how his grandfather, after founding Culver City, was summoned to numerous towns throughout the country to disclose his secret, how he birthed a community that functioned like a well-greased luxury car.
Long before she became mayor, Ms. Sahli-Wells was known throughout all five square miles of Culver City for her daily devotion to bicycle riding, her favorite mode of transportation.
With delightful symbolism, Mr. Wilde called the mayor to the stage to present her with a 118-year-old photo of his grandfather, riding a bike.
