Suffused with the kind of supreme ferocity that drives ordinary persons to accomplish extraordinary achievements, two City Council members, simultaneously squeezed by time and driven by a groundswelling populist cause, scored a sterling symbolic victory last night before a wild crowd in Council Chambers.
With Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and his newly elected ally on the dais, Councilman Chris Armenta going to the whip, furiously, a local animal control officer, a long-resisted proposition, was approved by a sternly divided Council, 3 to 2.
This marked a rare agenda victory for Mr. Silbiger, an utterly delicious moment to savor, a stunning triumph that he and his loyal backers believed was earned through years of his persistence, an iron-willed stubbornness, and an unbowed refusal to surrender to odds on the dais.
The outcome turned on three significant events:
• An early contention that there had been insufficient public notification was rejected, of all people, by its two strongest proponents, Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta, along with Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, who had an unorthodox meeting.
• A pivotal player every week on this Council, Mr. O’Leary singlehandedly determined the final result. With his four colleagues evenly divided, he spoke fifth. He announced forcefully that even though he calculated the restless crowd was 77 to 13 in favor of a local animal control officer, he was not ready to support such a proposition. Instantly, stunningly, he reversed himself. In the very next sentence, Mr. O’Leary offered a substitute motion, to back a pilot, or experimental, two-year program for a local animal control officer, and this was adopted. Mr. O’Leary’s proposal allowed him to be true to his recent campaign promise that he would take this position, not to mention faithful to many of the voters who put him in office.
• Most of the drama, however, was crammed into the intriguing backstory that was not publicly acknowledged. That was where most of the energy of the meeting was concentrated, unbeknownst, probably, to most of the rabid partisans.
The three irreversibly committed advocates for a local animal control officer — Mr. Silbiger, Mr. Armenta and their slightly less passionate colleague Mr. O’Leary — were frantic to get the issue passed at last night’s meeting.
Otherwise, they probably would have blown their only chance to win approval for what has become a crusade before the Vice Mayor is term-limited in April of ’10. And this is one of the Vice Mayor’s priority neon projects.
Here is why it was do-or-drop dead time for the three Council members:
With the budget for the new fiscal year scheduled to be approved minutes later, they engaged in the old-fashioned legislative exercise of vote-counting. If the majority of three could ram through approval of a local animal control officer before the budget was passed, only their three votes would be necessary for passage.
However, if for any reason a vote were delayed until after the budget was approved last night, a budget amendment would have required approval from four of the five members. This doubtless would have spelled doom for their scheme. Neither Mayor Scott Malsin nor Councilman Andy Weissman was budging.
To the steady drumbeat of audience applause, blended with periodic hooting from partisans in the mostly full audience, Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta climbed a tall mountain that has been rebuffing the Vice Mayor throughout his two terms on the Council. In fact, the winners did not get the deal they wanted —settling reluctantly, skeptically, for a temporary two-year plan rather than a permanent or open-ended order. They were forced to embrace Mr. O’Leary’s watered-down version. If they had rejected his lighter weight alternative, they risked alienating him and losing him as an ally. Mr. Armenta was fast to sign up, Mr. Silbiger far more reoluctant.
In the final accounting, it mattered not a whit because all they needed was a bare-bones deal to beat the budget clock that inexorably was ticking.
Work Plan
After 90 emoting residents had their say about an animal control officer, Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta crafted a broad scenario in which Culver City would permanently hire a hometown officer. The scheme was not fleshed out, and that was the focused objection . of Mr. Weissman and Mr. Malsin who insisted that too little pertinent information was known, warranting postponement. Presumably, the officer would divide his workday between patrolling the streets and pursuing licenses for the community’s thousands of uncertified dogs, acciording to Mr. Armenta.
Nothing fancy or elaborate about the plan.
Critics argued that naming an officer, whether from Culver City or the County, was a neutral move that made no difference to the ultimate result. It did not change the core issue, they said, that regardless of who retrieved the troubled animals, they still would be taken to the controversial County shelter in Carson. Culver City does not have one, and does not have an outline or a strategy for a shelter, among other fundamental shortcomings.
But, as the astute Mr. Armenta noted, perhaps a half-dozen times, his side just needed to wedge a foot into the doorway — the details, and there are a thousand of them, could be addressed later. Unarticulated was the fact that the budget vote, deadline time, was lurking.
The whole evening could have gone off track if Mr. Weissman had gotten his way when he sought to delay discussion of the entire issue until a later date, claiming that public notification, the hot topic most weeks, had been not only late but insufficient. The rich irony of his argument is that public notification is a preferred talking-point of both Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger. It could have derailed their best-laid plans, even before a debate began, but the two of them eluded Mr. Weissman’s challenge.
Difference Between 2, 000 and 700
Mr. Weissman contended that too few community members had been notified by City Hall, a frequent complaint of Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger. Barely 700 persons had been emailed since Thursday night when the city belatedly posted its complex strategies for accommodating a local animal control officer.
Earlier this month, Mr. Weissman noted, his colleagues vociferously objected to approving an item — on the grounds of insufficient public notice — when a relatively hefty mailing of 2,000 drew only three residents to a community meeting on the Washington-National light rail development.
Yet here was an instance in which only a fraction of that number were contacted, he added.
City Manager Jerry Fulwood quickly acknowledged that the city’s notification had been tardy. But Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger reversed their regular roles. For a change, they stood stoutly against postponement because of lack of public notification while perturbed members of the audience cried out “no, no” to the prospect of a delay.
Talking Back
Mr. Armenta: “I do agree there does need to be some form of consistency. But I do see a substantial difference between the a major development in the Washington-National corridor that will cost millions of dollars, with huge traffic and infrastructure implications. Compare that to what may happen tonight regarding potential local animal control . There is just a fundamental difference in regards to consistency.” He said because of the wide difference in impacts, the present discussion should begin without interruption.
Mr. Silbiger made a similar contention. “If we postponed every decision where notification was sent out on Thursday or Friday, or was not sent out to everybody, we would have nothing to vote on.”
Mr. Weissman scarcely was mollified. He said Mr. Armenta’s answer “was not a principled position.”
He said that public notification was the point, not comparative impacts of issues. “Mr. Silbiger, Mr. Armenta and Mr. O’Leary had to know, intellectually,” he said, “that the notification was inadequate. Obviously, there is an emotional component. The heart may have overwhelmed the head”
The Particulars
Probably sometime within the next six or seven months, Culver City will hire its first locally-sponsored animal control officer.
He or she will be paid almost $70,000 for carrying out 18 separate duties during a 40-hour work week. This led the witty Mr. Weissman to remark that if the animal control officer actually does fulfill his bulging job description, “hewill become the hardest working person in Culver City.”
That was probably the only light — not to mention clear-cut —moment in a weighty, grim, grinding evening punctuated by icy zingers flipped up and down the dais by the so-called new City Council, which quickly has settled into obviously demarcated rival factions.
Long-complaining pet owners have maintained that they have been underserved by an out-of-town animal control officer and by the remote designated animal shelter for Culver City, a facility 17 miles away in Carson, which typically is described as “filthy.” None of that changes as a result of the embryonic pilot program.
