Daniel Lee, owner of an obscure profile two months ago, is emerging as the most pleasant surprise of the seven-way race for three City Council seats.
The 36-year-old bachelor/actor/filmmaker/social worker/social justice activist impresses anew at each candidates forum.
Born in Alabama, raised in Florida, an Angeleno at 17, with degrees from USC and UCLA, Mr. Lee is a portrait of consistency at each outing.
An unrequited progressive, this only distinguishes him from two of his six rivals, a field not for the fainthearted. Mr. Lee is up against small business owners Göran Eriksson, Scott Wyant and the uniquely credentialed Thomas Small. Messrs. Eriksson and Wyant have fashioned perfect records of giving widely informed, heavyweight answers to every conceivable question. Mr. Small’s faultless international credentials in architecture, design, journalism and the environment, and his gilded ability to articulate these causes, stand him apart from his competitors.
As for Mr. Lee, his consistently well-researched responses uniformly have been thoughtful, reflective, measured, most recently at last evening’s Blair Hills forum.
By the way, his answers are softly delivered, a style that only enhances his believability.
What About Luring Retailers?
The most interesting question pitched at the well-attended Blair Hills forum at Kenny Hahn State Park was inspired by the glut of restaurants that monopolizes Downtown.
How will you encourage more businesses that generate sales tax, instead of just restaurants, to come to Culver City, especially Downtown?
“An interesting question, one I have thought about a lot,” Mr. Lee said. “I often go Downtown. But I actually live near Washington and Sepulveda.”
He suggested formulating a plan, and not just leaving expansion to chance.
“If we set targets, as a City Council, as a Planning Commission, for percentages of the types of businesses we want to have, then this can get us away from being a restaurant-only destination.”
“This is an important question,” Mr. Eriksson said, “because over 70 percent of the budget in our General Fund, for fire, police, parks and streets, comes from business.”
Where Is Diversity?
It is fine that the once sleepy Downtown now throbs with lively, popular restaurants, he said but attracting retail has been a daunting, largely unaccomplished, task.
More than half of the business licenses in Culver City are held by small businesses with five or fewer employees, said Mr. Wyant. “They don’t go to the office,” he said. “Their office is wherever they go. We don’t concentrate in small businesses as much as I would like to see it happen.
“We have industrial corridors, commercial corridors, up and down Washington, up and down Sawtelle, up and down Sepulveda where (new) small businesses could be located,” said Mr. Wyant. “That is, if we change some zoning to allow, for example, my daughter and her boyfriend, to have a live-work place where they can have their office downstairs and their apartment upstairs. I am thinking about small, entrepreneurial businesses we can attract.”
The problem with attracting more retail to move into Downtown, said Marcus Tiggs, “is that rents are too high.”
City Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells noted that the city “is investing $10 million into a municipal broadband network to bring high-speed internet to our businesses.”
Here was Mr. Small’s take: “By continuing to improve our quality of life here in Culver City and our services, we can nurture that creative economy.
“We are in the perfect position to do it” because surrounding communities not only are near capacity but off-puttingly expensive.
“By making the city work, by making those (10 projected) developments work well, by creating excellent transportation options, meaning without your car, by improving Ballona Creek and making it attractive – by nurturing our quality of life and encouraging new businesses, we can have our city prosper.”
