How do they feel, three of Culver City’s best-known, most enduring and occasionally pilloried citizens one month before stepping down from the glaring light of the School Board?
A time for tears?
Or to explode in a burst of long-restrained joy?
Easy call.
Board President Dr. Jessica Beagles-Roos, Dr. Dana Russell and Saundra Davis were morning-dew fresh 8 years ago next month when they landed on Irving Place as a reward for being the last candidates standing in another crowded, but lightly voted, election.
At last night’s School Board meeting, the faces of all three were wreathed in gleaming smiles — of relief?
Neither high nor low, they were pretty businesslike, confident they had discharged their closely watched duties properly and without spectacle or major gaffe.
Before assembling in the unusually jammed Board Room, there was no New Year’s Eve environment, no sloppy sentimentality, and emphatically no regrets.
They treated their impending transition as workaday.
They were models of equanimity.
When the first every fortnight meeting is convened in December, a month after Tuesday’s election, they will quietly float through the portals while everyone is watching other people. Some three-person combination of candidates Kathy Paspalis, Gary Abrams, Karlo Silbiger, Prof. Patricia Siever and Alan Elmont will enter the horseshoe desk arrangement.
They will — or should — be throbbing with newness and at least a touch of nervousness, the way Ms. Davis, Dr. Russell and Dr. Beagles-Roos did on a memorable evening in December 2001, less than 90 days after 9/11, when they essayed their debuts.
Standing by her chair at the top of the Board Room horseshoe, Ms. Davis, outspoken and frequently a lightning rod, talked about her departure.
Which Office Will Be Next?
“I feel like I have done my job,” she said. “I am proud of the accomplishments we have made since I have been on the Board.
“I look forward to retirement,” Ms. Davis said with a wide smile that suggested what friends have predicted for years — that she has her eye on another elective office.
Retirement from the School Board, but not from politics?
“Possibly,” she said, coyly. “Possibly not.”
When will she announce?
“I can’t really say,” the competitive Ms. Davis said, still smiling.
A career-long educator, she presently is a leader at one of the 18 WorkSource centers in Los Angeles, a position that consumes a wide portion of her life.
In the busy, milling-around corridor minutes before one of his last meetings, Dr. Russell, measured, moderate and composed as usual, anticipates transitioning back toward a more private life without causing any ruffles.
“It has been a good 8 years,” he said, with pride. “Good people are running in this election. So the District will be in good hands.”
What will the dentist be doing every other Tuesday evening?
“Interestingly enough,” he said, “I am looking into doing volunteer work for the Dental School at UCLA,” where he did his residency.
Is Dr. Russell entertaining sentimental feelings?
“It’s mixed feelings,” he said. “Eight years is long enough. It is time for somebody new to come in with new ideas, new enthusiasm.
“But (my two terms) have been enjoyable. I got to meet a lot of people I otherwise never would have met. I feel like the School District has progressed while we have been on the Board.”
If there is one personal trait a Board member has stamped on the past 8 years, it is that Dr. Beagles-Roos is a cautious speaker of few words.
And so it was last night. She said she would prefer to speak post-election.
