Tonight at 7: The Culver City Homeowners Assn. hosts a Candidates Forum in the Rotunda Room at the Vets Auditorium, 4117 Overland Ave.
They were looking for an imaginative way to avoid monotony or candidate fatigue in last night’s latest forum for the City Council contenders at El Marino Language School.
At the behest of Laura Stuart, vice president of the Sunkist Park neighborhood association, a dramatically different format was tried:
In the spacious El Marino cafeteria, the nine candidates were posted at separate tables encircling the room.
The estimated 50 residents from perhaps the most active neighborhood in Culver City were invited to visit privately with Dr. Luther Henderson, Loni Anderson, Jeff Cooper, Andy Weissman, Cary Anderson, Mehaul O’Leary, Christopher Armenta, Gary Russell and Randy Scott Leslie.
They are competing for three open City Council seats in the April 8 election, six weeks from next Tuesday.
The evening had the atmosphere of an indoor picnic, especially since each of the candidates had brought libations to keep the crowd lubricated and snacks to keep their tummies contented.
A Plan Comes to Life
Gliding around the well-lighted and crowded room, Ms. Stuart, no stranger to City Hall politics, loved what she saw.
Pockets of shmoozers were ubiquitous.
No one was sitting. Animatedly, everybody was mingling.
“The candidates really liked it,” Ms. Stuart said. “Everyone did because they had a chance to get acquainted, to really get to know each other.
“The candidates were asked hard questions, and people seemed satisfied with their answers. “
Good Night, Ladies and Gentlemen
The experimental format worked so effectively that at 9:15, an hour and a half after the table-hopping started, Ms. Stuart and her friends starting shooing visitors out of the building.
Time to go home.
Mr. O’Leary, for one, concurred with Ms. Stuart’s sunny assessment.
“I absolutely loved it,” he told the newspaper. “It was really exciting, and I will tell you the truth: I didn’t want to leave.
“The questions were varied, and the residents who asked them were obviously well informed.”
Mr. Cooper was cooler toward the format. “It gave me one-on-one opportunities with constituents — just not enough. The idea looked better in theory than in practice.”
Approving Vote
Mr. Weissman was enthused about the program “because it gave us a chance to interact in a different — and better — way than before. In a public setting, a question is asked, and all nine use roughly the same words in answering. That is not very helpful.
“In this setup, we had a chance to get to know each other. We were able to get into depth on questions.”
