Since 97 percent of Culver City voters have not attended any club-sponsored forums for the seven City Council candidates, here is a look at the contenders less than a month before the April 12 vote.
Today, Marcus Tiggs and Jay Garacochea.
Mr. Tiggs:
“He reminds me of Ben Carson,” a City Hall-type remarked the other day, and the characterization was apt.
Not only do Mr. Tiggs and Dr. Carson bear a striking facial resemblance, their pillow-soft speaking manner and their obvious intellectual depth make these political twins triplets.
In Mr. Tiggs’s case, there is no question of his comprehensive qualifications, and that is where parallels can end.
In preparation for the candidate forums and his fiscal knowledge of City Hall’s revenue and expenses, Mr. Tiggs is unsurpassed. He may be more intimately knowledgeable of the city’s fiscal side than any of his six rivals.
Typically, it is unclear whether the retired Army officer/combat veteran’s resumé is perceived as an irresistible qualification or a mere stone lying on the ground.
In the hands of a candidate with a decidedly more aggressive personality, Mr. Tiggs’s talents would be sufficient to make a serious bid for office.
A lesson for Mr. Tiggs:
Voters remind hometown and national politicians that they are like a boy and girl beginning the dating process:
They want to be impressed. Demonstrably. Don’t make them strain to deduce meaning or effectiveness.
Is the eminently likeable Mr. Tiggs carving an inroad with voters?
Mr. Garacochea:
A member of the Culver City Police Dept. for almost two decades before leaving to work in corporate security, this edition of Mr. Nice Guy sometimes appears to be winging it.
He appears to have the least familiarity with core community issues.
Routinely he falls back on public safety and traffic – certainly a valid theme – as his central talking/selling point.
At the Culver Crest Neighborhood Forum last Thursday, Mr. Garacochea (Gair-uh-coh-shay) repeatedly decried the numerical decline of the Police Dept. since he signed up in 1993. He faulted the shrinkage for some of today’s traffic woes.
He is trying as hard as any rival. But he just seems insufficiently schooled/insufficiently comfortable with the headline topics.
He can take a position, but the shrubbery surrounding his opinion is practically barren.
He is a man with a tight crewcut entering a contest for men with magnificent hair.
No one will out-nice him but nearly all will surpass him in issue-familiarity.
