When Jim B. Clarke was elected to the City Council three months ago, his colleagues were curious about how his opening act would play out.
At 63 years old, he has been around community meetings as a professional politician for years, always, though, as a deputy to a Sacramento or Washington person, somebody’s helper, never the main event.
First Votes Are in
The early ratings on Mr. Clarke: Brick solid, sound thinker, disciplined, reliable as (but not as predictable as) the calendar.
Who says so?
After Mr. Clarke’s latest showing at last Monday’s special Council meeting on fracking, the leader of the Council, Mayor Andy Weissman, handed him a blue ribbon for his first 90 days.
The nature of community politics seldom allows invested members to gaze far beyond their own desks when credit is to be distributed. That is what makes the mayor’s remarks notable.
Another freshman member, Meghan Sahli-Wells, and the ever-steady Mr. Weissman mainly were credited with keeping a onesided, strongly anti-fracking crowd under control. Their calming approaches and pragmatic words prevented the program from tilting toward chaos.
The mayor said that Mr. Clarke, a proudly declared liberal, deserved to take a bow for once again setting an influential example with his measured approach to a bombastic topic.
“Jim comes to the meetings well-prepared,” Mr. Weissman said. “He knows the material. He asks good questions, questions that demonstrate a real understanding of the issues.
“Jim doesn’t ask self-serving questions just to get a sound-bite. He asks questions because he is seriously interested in the answer.
“He is a valuable member of the Council. Even though Meghan and I were singled out, Jim’s contribution was no different.
“He stressed that we need to be able to make a decision about a ban or moratorium on fracking based on facts and data not on emotion.”
Bending When Advisable
An example of Mr. Clarke’s flexibility on crucial subjects occurred early in the meeting.
At stake was a proposed resolution from the City Council for Gov. Brown, demanding that he place a statewide moratorium on fracking until more information about its safety factors is obtained.
Ms. Sahli-Wells opened the discussion by promptly urging the Council to sub “ban” for “moratorium.” Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper followed by avidly agreeing, and now momentum was building. The anti-fracking activists hunched forward in their seats. The third speaker, Mehaul O’Leary, did not seem to claim a pro or con position.
To the surprise of some, Mr. Clarke did not join the ban momentum. “I support the resolution as written, without (Ms. Sahli-Wells’s proposed) amendment,” he said. “It will be easier to issue a moratorium than a ban.”
He said later that ban or moratorium, “basically they accomplish the same thing.”
He came into the Council race last December with a reputation as a sensible partisan, and he demonstrated it at this meeting.
As for the threat posed by drilling in the nearby Baldwin Hills Oil Field, Mr. Clarke took the kind of position that has earned him praise. “Fracking may be worse than we think or it may not,” he said.
A moment later, Mr. Clarke’s more conservative side won the vote, 3 to 2, to reject the Sahli-Wells amendment and seek a moratorium rather than a ban.
But when Mr. Weissman immediately said such a resolution should be unanimous, and that he could accept ban or moratorium, his four colleagues, including Mr. Clarke, swiftly assented to Ms. Sahli-Wells’s amendment.
A volatile interlude had been avoided.
