First in a series
Only bearded ladies favoring a single drooping earring are seen more seldom than self-effacing upper-level government officials.
[img]847|left|Jeff Muir||no_popup[/img] Meet, actually re-meet, young Jeff Muir, who is the prototype personality for the accountants and similar kinds of gentlemen who have dedicated their quiet, extremely soft-spoken lives to studying figures — the kind without two legs.
A strapping former athlete with a crewcut that should keep the barber at a safe distance until his next birthday, Mr. Muir may resemble the garrulous type of ex-athlete.
He is not.
He is less outgoing than Helen Keller. You frequently have to scoot closer to catch every syllable before, like a cloth toy, it noiselessly tumbles to the carpeted floor of his ground level office in a corner of City Hall.
Mr. Muir, still delightfully south of 40 years old, launched his second term as Chief Financial Officer of Culver City a week ago last Monday.
His welcome return may be filed under Restoration of Order.
He was hired away from his home base in Inglewood when City Hall turned its old charter upside down, restructured the city team, and found it needed a financial maven who was not shy about twisting, if not swizzling, the top of a turnip.
After Mark Scott, who was City Manager for a hiccup-long stay, returned to Southern California last spring from the Deep South, City Hall thought it was in four sturdy hands at least long enough to emerge from the devastating recession.
Wrong assumption.
But last November, Mr. Muir was lured back to his home base, Inglewood, with a sizable raise and expansion of responsibility. No problem. Mr. Scott volunteered to take charge of both portfolios.
Except that eight weeks after Mr. Muir departed, Mr. Scott informed the City Council, “Boys, this gig is over.”
So much for stability.
But, curiously, about that time, Mr. Muir had an unplanned conversation with a City Hall-type. The Mayor of Inglewood was on his way to jail, which had to make Inglewood City Hall a less attractive proposition, and deteriorating conditions were not quite as inviting as they had appeared to Mr. Muir at Thanksgiving time. Talks began. Soon enough they heated up.
Mr. Scott, preparing to leave town, was juggling a few medicine balls simultaneously, and he was unable to close the deal with Mr. Muir.
In the first week of Interim City Manager Lamont Ewell’s four-month term, he gave Mr. Muir the lead time he wanted for closing out his Inglewood assignment. Three weeks later to the day, Mr. Muir was welcomed home as if the city were starving and he held a lifetime supply of manna in his satchel.
(To be continued)
