A certain young journalist in the last century was savagely and repeatedly criticized by his editors for opening the obituaries that he wrote with dense, convoluted, distracting details.
He would allude to the corpse’s professional life, most noted accomplishments, family life and hometown associations all before reporting that the luckless chap had succumbed.
Determined to prove that he not only was a fast learner but adaptable, the lead on his next obituary read:
“Dead.
“That is what Mr. Blank-Blank was when his wife found him slumped over on a busy Downtown sidewalk.
In that spirit:
New.
That is what the reconfigured City Council will be this evening at 7 o’clock in Council Chambers.
Four of the five chairs on the dais will be occupied by new faces or persons with new titles.
Thomas Small and Göran Eriksson will take over the chairs formerly held by term-limited Mayor Mehaul O’Leary and Vice Mayor Andy Weissman.
The veteran Jim Clarke will assume Mr. O’Leary’s Hizzoner title. Jeff Cooper will step into Mr. Weissman’s Hiz Half-Honor’s shoes.
While majority attention has been trained on the two freshman members of the Council, this is a huge breakthrough occasion for Mr. Clarke.
Mr. Ubiquitous, as he is known, is said to be the only Councilman who can appear simultaneously in three or more locations.
Although he has decades longer experience in politics than his four colleagues cumulatively, tonight will mark Mr. Clarke’s first flirtation with the mayor’s chair.
His turn in the alleged rotation of elevations came earlier. But the birth father of Culver City’s Centennial asked for a delay.
He wanted to be the city leader in the Year of the Centennial, which he has sensitively, enthusiastically nurtured from before it was a gleam in even his eye.
