“Certainly we have not forgotten him,” Charles Herbertson, the director of Public Works, said this afternoon at City Hall on the 5-month, 2-day anniversary of Paul Bilodeau’s murder.
After an opening-round cluster of excitement following his slaying on the night of Jan. 2 and at his well-attended funeral, public mention of Mr. Bilodeau, a consultant, has vanished.
The Culver City Police Dept. definitely is not talking.
Silent from the start, they are trying to determine whether his routine professional life or assertedly spotless personal life overtook the handsome and congenial 45-year-old bachelor.
He was, shot multiple times, as he worked at his desk inside of a trailer after hours on a Friday night at the remote construction site of the new Fire Station No. 3 on big and broad Bristol Parkway in Fox Hills.
No suspects have been arrested, and there is no indication cops are closing in on anyone.
Guarding His Legacy
Mr. Herbertson said he and his staff are trying to keep the flame of Mr. Bilodeau’s brief life in Culver City lit.
On the organizational chart in the Public Works offices, Mr. Bilodeau’s likeness is displayed along with those of other more regular employees.
Mr. Herbertson said he often thinks of the mystifying Bilodeau tragedy.
But there is a difference.
Although the victim — roundly described as “likeable” — had been in Culver City’s employ for nearly two years, his beat was the jobsite. That was where you could find him every working day, mediating differences that arose — some routine, some not — between the builder, an ambitious Venice Boulevard construction company, and the city.
On-the-job friction was no stranger to Mr. Bilodeau’s workaday routine. Tempers broke out periodically, not uncommon in the circumstances.
A pleasant but decidedly private person during working hours, he was not a known or quickly recognized personality around City Hall.
A longtime City Hall employee wondered out loud the other day whether Mr. Bilodeau’s case would have attracted more community attention and pressure if he had been a permanent employee rather than a consultant under contract.
The answer probably is yes, said two sources. As a permanent employee, he likely would have carried a higher profile.
Co-workers were, of course, shocked by his murder. But since he did not frequent the Public Works’ offices at City Hall, as Mr. Herbertson noted, his death did not leave a physical void that would be visible every day when staffers reported for work.
“If he had had a desk here,” Mr. Herbertson said, “it might have been a little different. His effects would be in front of you every day.”
Construction Halted
The fatal assault on Mr. Bilodeau caused the project to be shut down for six weeks last winter. The much-anticipated new Fire Station now figures to be finished by late July or early August.
Some time after that, in the late stages of summer, there will be a grand unveiling in Fox Hills when the victim’s name will be invoked.
Mr. Herbertson said the city plans to honor Mr. Bilodeau’s memory at the ceremony as well as to provide a permanent reminder of his contribution and murder.
The construction site was unguarded until Mr. Bilodeau was attacked.
Thereafter, a video camera and overnight security guard were dispatched to the lonely grounds until this week when the city was able to secure the new Fire Station for the first time.
