Even from a distance, you can sense the excitement in Mayor Mehaul O’Leary.
Rubbing his hands together, a cheerful glint in his sparkling eyes, he prepares for this evening’s unusual Hi, Neighbor meeting with a cluster of aroused residents/parents at Syd Kronenthal Park in East Culver City.
This is one of the neon reasons Mr. O’Leary wanted to become mayor:
To sit down over a bowl of verbal victuals with community members who bring a sizzling beef – not to consume beef, roast or any other kind.
At 7 o’clock, an array of City Hall brass, the City Council, the Parks and Recreation Commission, Dan Hernandez, the Parks and Recreation director, and couple more personalities will convene.
Mainly they will be there to listen to mightily upset parents question why their children’s needs were snubbed when new playground equipment recently was installed.
Shiny playground attractions arrived at Syd Kronenthal for boys and girls from age 5 on up, while 2- to 5-year-olds were left with outdated pieces.
Why?
“Tonight could go two ways,” Mayor O’Leary said this morning. “It could start with parents who didn’t speak at the last Council meeting to tell us how we did badly.
“I am hoping (though) when we kick the meeting off that staff – which I suggested – starts by telling the audience how long this has been going on with the city’s parks’ master plan. Since 2007.
“This has been going so long,” said Mr. O’Leary, “waiting for funding to move these projects forward that none of the current Council members or Park commissioners was in office at the time.”
This provided an opening for one more pithy political observation by Mayor O’Leary:
“Another example of the speed of government education.”
The mayor noted that back in ’07, since-retired County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke notified City Hall $250,000 was available.
Council members have been prisoners, in a way.
“There have been many public outreach efforts throughout this whole process,” Mr. O’Leary said. “Projects have been listed in order of priority. We have been going through that list, albeit old, chronologically. We have said that when we get the funding, we will do the next project on the list.”
Herein lies a problem of cold logic – parents with children 2 to 5 years old eight years ago now are parents of 10 to 13 year olds.
City Hall, Mr. O’Leary said, never adapted to change, never sought opinions from parents of present-day 2 to 5 year olds.
“There was an expectation by staff the same public was involved,” Mr. O’Leary said, “that they didn’t need to do extended outreach to update information on when the projects were chosen, back in the day.
“This,” said Mr. O’Leary is what we will be hearing tonight.”
