[img]1792|right|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img]A week and a half ago at 10 o’clock on Election Night, moments after he had been swept back into office, City Councilman Jim Clarke, cheered by jubilant supporters at City Tavern, declared a strong second-term wish.
“I want to be mayor the year of our (2017) centennial,” he said.
Mr. Clarke is to Culver City what Franklin and Jefferson were to early America — an unfettered cheerleader. A Northern Californian by birth, the 65-year-old bachelor’s long ago-declared authentic love for his adopted hometown is far more engulfing than a few red, white and blue words.
Mr. Clarke has a vision, and he talked about it this afternoon.
“I am working on putting together a non-profit organization,” he said. “It won’t necessarily have to be headed by me, a Culver City Centennial Celebration Committee that will put on or coordinate events through various city organizations.
“The city itself is going to be too strapped to run a centennial celebration. We are still down in staff load and city budget.
“So I am looking to have the community step up. I am encouraging the community to take a role in celebrating our centennial,” Mr. Clarke said.
He will get a taste of mayor fever in 10 days, on Monday night, April 28. Under City Hall’s rotation system, Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells is due to become the first woman mayor of Culver City in almost a decade at the 7 o’clock City Council meeting in Council Chambers.
Just before leaving for Good Friday services at St. Augustine’s, Mr. Clarke, a second-term Councilman, turned to the types of centennial events he envisions.
“I am looking for organizations and individuals to come up with the ideas,” he said. “They don’t have to be historical in nature, but something that helps to celebrate what great organizations and individuals we have here in Culver City.
“I am thinking of poster ad essay contests for school kids. It could be having a couple hundred people with candles show up on the football field in the evening, spelling out Culver City in script. That is one of the events the City of Torrance did,” said Mr. Clarke, “and I thought it was very cool.”
(To be continued)
