Last Saturday’s spectacular inauguration of Culver City’s Centennial Year was 2½ years in the making.
“I am very proud of the way the day went,” said Mayor Jim Clarke, the birth father of the Centennial movement.
He would take a bow, but he wanted others to join him.
“I am not the only father –there were many fathers, many made this happen.”
Planning and organizing started early in 2014, when the start of the Centennial Year to mark Culver City’s 99th birthday, was just an amorphous idea.
“It was important that we started 2½ years early,” Mr. Clarke said. “That was the advice we had gotten from cities that had been successful.
“I am glad we starred then because of the way that things have come together.”
It is safe to suggest that most Culver City residents were not Centennial Year-conscious until Mr. Clarke began publicly billboarding the concept.
A happy confluence of events brought Mr. Clarke to his prominent placement in the Centennial galaxy.
“I was aware of it,” the mayor said. “I knew it would be coming up while I was on the City Council.”
What about financing this enormous undertaking?
“At the time,” said Mr. Clarke, “we still were in the so-called Great Recession. The city had cut back on staff. We had lost the Redevelopment Agency. Budgets were tight.
“The idea that the costs for the Centennial were going to be on the back of the city was just impractical.”
Mr. Clarke’s No. 1 chore: To fundraise.
(To be continued)
