Like the thoroughbred candidate he was advertised to be last autumn, the lone incumbent Scott Malsin galloped to a wide, inarguable victory over his opponents last night in Blair Hills at the final Candidates Forum before Tuesday’s election for two City Council seats.
Delivering at money time following an uneven, unspectacular earlier campaign, Mr. Malsin sweetened his climaxing performance by twice correcting factual errors served up by his fellow challengers.
His penchant for never suffering bashfulness about pointing to others’ gaffes, handily aided him while his rivals perhaps were thinking of folding their campaign tents.
Here is how he increased what seems to be an already substantial lead over his perceived nearest rivals:
• When Jeff Cooper erroneously identified the city’s budget gap as $6 million, Mr. Malsin, finishing his first term on the City Council, noted that the deficit is half that figure, $3 million.
• When Meghan Sahli-Wells said that Culver City is without a Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Malsin reminded her that former CFO Jeff Muir had been rehired last Monday, and officially returns on April 26.
In both cases, the corrected candidates were rendered responseless.
Robert Zirgulis, the fourth contender, who believes he is the hardest-working candidate, had a good evening, too, at the Ohr Eliyahu Yeshiva before the Blair Hills Neighborhood Assn. audience. With Bilson Davis chairing the forum and Hank Shapiro, perhaps the neighborhood’s most senior resident, opening by playing “God Bless America” on his harmonica, the assembly encouraged a cozy hometown feeling.
As for Mr. Zirgulis, no stranger himself to correcting or criticizing his opponents, he chose a drilling-sensitive crowd as the backdrop to his charge that Mr. Cooper has, at separate times, declared himself as an advocate and an opponent of drilling in the Inglewood Oil Field. He cited sources by name. Mr. Cooper did not answer the accusation.
On the Friday before the Tuesday election, will these kinds of citations matter?
Possibly, especially since the race for the second Council chair is deemed a near deadlock.
Mr. Malsin’s vast landscape of both penetrating and fingertip knowledge about the city has regularly drowned out the voices of his competition.
When he corrects rivals, not on insider stuff but on general information that alert residents know, logic suggests such developments will help Mr. Malsin while it could enforce a notion that the others have a shaky grasp on pertinent data.
There also were other instances last night when the Councilman, in a correcting mode, gave his City Hall perspective to comments by other contenders.
Mr. Malsin already holds a dominant hand in the race. Finishing fast, conventional community wisdom says he will easily be the top votegetter.
At times during the past three months, it has seemed as if Mr. Malsin is big brother and the field is comprised of his charges for the day. He is the teacher. They are the students. Sometimes the gap in command between him and the field is from here to Kansas City.
On another hand, it can be asserted that naturally, he should know more than all of them put together. He has been on the inside for four years while they have been miles away.
As for candidates not named Malsin:
Robert Zirgulis: His detractors say that the tireless research workhorse of the field, who has uncovered notable nuggets of fascinating City Hall data, is not ready for prime-time because he seems volatile. “This might seem radical,” he is disposed to say during his speeches, each time alluding to a different topic. His passion has been to resume full-blown “but safe” oil drilling so the city can collect revenues from this disputed activity. He portrays himself as a dedicated whistleblower convinced that small-town corruption leaks on every floor of City Hall. He pledges to expose it.
Meghan Sahli-Wells: Unerringly from the start, she has presented herself as the commoner who seeks to be elevated to the dais so she can speak the true voice of the people’s will. As the heir to outgoing Councilman Gary Silbiger’s philosophical mantle, her critics wonder if she will be willing to weave or blend the will of the community with the broader and varied insights of those elected to authority. “There is a fine balance between having a healthy business community and healthy neighborhoods,” she said last night. Later, when she stressed the importance of City Hall conducting commerce with Culver City businesses, Mr. Malsin, the arch-critic, waved off her assessment. Such a policy would measure no more than a raindrop to the budget gap, he argued. The test for her, then, would be to see how willing she would be to defer or compromise, which is a typically tense challenge for new Council members.
Jeff Cooper: A cinch to capture the sentimentalist vote — the most congenial of all, the easiest-going of all, perhaps the most familiar to the community of all — his supporters say that for an aspiring Councilman, his profile is unassailable. Not perfect but the closest any town can come to producing a candidate who strikes a fair and balanced path between commercial and residential interests, who is steeped with insider knowledge and insights after 10 years as a city commissioner, he does practically everything except spit nickels. Kiddingly referred to earlier in the campaign as the Chamber of Commerce’s rep to the city for his unfailingly sunny hometown evaluations, his unrelieved enthusiasm probably papers over most of his shortcomings.
