[img]1792|left|Mr. Clarke||no_popup[/img]Every spring, those who are keen of hearing identify two reliable sounds in Culver City:
Birds chirp and so do members/backers of the Exchange Club – over how much it should reimburse City Hall for the privilege of staging the Car Show in the bosom of Downtown on Mother’s Day weekend.
At last evening’s City Council meeting, as the swallows were returning to Capistrano a few minutes late, Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper was saying the Exchange Club should not be forced to swallow an increased reimbursement this year, a leap from $10,400 to $14,400.
Especially, said Mr. Cooper, since the Exchange Club’s main fundraiser of the year, the 4th of July Fireworks Show has been cancelled – because the high school football field will be up to its 50-yard-line in construction.
Mr. Cooper, a longstanding member of the Exchange Club, explained that he was not speaking as a Club partisan. Rather, he said, he was commenting as a member of the City Council team.
What to do?
Moments earlier, Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, ailing with an apparent infection, left the meeting, which plunged his surviving colleagues into a quandary.
When members were polled, yeah or nay on Mr. Cooper’s proposal to raise the Exchange Club fee by $4,000, the Vice Mayor and Jim Clarke said no, Mayor Andy Weissman and Meghan Sahli-Wells, yes.
A rare moment, a deadlock on the dais.
However, Mr. Clarke stepped in to bust it in an imaginative way.
He volunteered to fundraise the $4,000 difference – just weeks after he successfully extended a similar offer to his Council mates when CicLAvia, the April 21 bicycles-only, street-closing party, from downtown Los Angeles to Venice Beach, came up $5,000 short.
Mr. Clarke this morning explained his motivation: “My understanding is that the Downtown Business Assn. had been reluctant to put any financial support behind community events that are occurring, particularly in the Downtown area. When we received the challenge grant from Sony for CicLAvia and the DBA, under President Eric Sims and Seth Horowitz of the Culver Hotel, stepped up and said ‘we’ll match that with $5,000,’ that was a breakthrough.
“Along the same lines, I am hoping we can break through on the Car Show.”
Will the DBA deliver again for Mr. Clarke, who is emerging himself as a major difference-maker?
Homes Sweet Homes
In a separate action, for the next 30 days, the City Council will invite brokers to apply to represent City Hall as it seeks to convert the old Fire Station No. 3 property in Sunkist Park into three 5,000-square foot lots for single family homes.
