Third in a series.
Re: “What Makes Andy Weissman Different”
How does it feel to stand on the ledge of enforced public retirement?
The question was put to Vice Mayor Andy Weissman, the most familiar political personality in Culver City in the last three decades.
“I have not begun to experience the sensation of imminent departure,” he said, knowing that those chilling waves washing over him lie just ahead.
City Hall is four months out from the next City Council election when three seats will be open.
Term limits can be blamed for Mr. Weissman’s exit a week after Council colleague Jeff Cooper advocated “at least three terms, as many other communities do.” Presently, though, changing that nearly quarter-century-old law is a longer shot than ending the drought in the near term.
Plenty of Council members in this young century have served two four-year terms, departed, returned to normal, quiet lives and there has been no discernible outcry for their return.
But Mr. Weissman is different from all of his modern predecessors.
Unlike them, he has been a continuous voice in city government since the early 1980s, whether by appointment or election.
He is not yet feeling the pinch, the twinge that is unavoidable when one departs from a job he has held for 30 years, especially when it was not his idea to go.
“There still is a lot of time,” Mr. Weissman tells himself and the community. “There still is a lots of city business to deal with.”
Finally, the truth rolled out onto the table, like a marble that would not stop moving.
“At the same time, I have felt for awhile there were going to be very mixed emotions,” Mr. Weissman said.
(To be continued)
