It is a rare City Council meeting when a resident steps to the podium with a community-wide suggestion that the Council appears to embrace.
Dr. Janet C. Hoult brandished a creative idea at last Monday evening’s Council meeting — expanding professional mediation services deeper into the community.
After identifying her credentials — two terms on the city’s Landlord/Tenant Mediation Board and certification as a mediator with the County Bar Assn. — the retired educator offered two brief case studies of successful mediation.
Mayor Scott Malsin’s eyes brightened as Dr. Hoult related her experiences.
When she finished, Mr. Malsin directed staffers to research the results the last time community mediation was explored several years ago.
Taking a cautious but optimistic approach, the mayor told the newspaper:
“Potentially mediation would be useful. But I want to make sure that we don’t insert the city where it isn’t needed or wanted.”
Here is Dr. Hoult’s address to the City Council:
As you know, I have served two terms on the Landlord-Tenant Mediation Board, currently as chair.
I thought long and hard about reapplying, but decided to do so because I hope that we may be able to look once again at the possibility of providing broader mediation services to the community.
At present, I am certified a mediator for the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., I assist Loyola Law School in training sessions for their students and the Western Center for Justice in their Peer Mediation Training Program for middle school and high school students.
My first certification as a mediator was in Orange County where I received training at the Institute for Conflict Management.
I served as a mediator at Westminster Small Claims Court, but became more involved with ICM where we handled not only neighbor-neighbor disputes, but also conflicts between businesses.
We set up programs within the Victim-Offenders Reconciliation Program, VORP. One such was the Shoplifter’s Clinic that was organized with the Santa Ana Police Dept.
I have seen over and over how mediation can be a win-win situation for the parties involved.
Let me tell you of one case in Orange County that demonstrates the positive way mediation can resolve problems.
A young teenager was out joyriding with his older brother.
He was leaning out the back window of the car, knocking over mailboxes along the road with a baseball bat.
An older lady saw him do it, got the license number of the car and she, the youngster and his parents wound up in mediation.
His parents said he had to pay to replace the mailbox, which he agreed to.
But the old lady wasn’t satisfied. Her mailbox had been handpainted with a very pretty picture. She wanted another one like it.
The agreement was made. The youngster earned enough money to buy a mailbox, painted the box and it looked so nice, he received orders for other mailboxes.
He started a business painting mailboxes while he was still in high school!
In another instance, I mediated a dispute in L.A. between two neighbors who had been friends for 40 years and now were not speaking.
It involved the building of a fence between their properties.
They were angry because each thought the other was not paying her fair share for the fence.
When they were asked to bring their receipts to the mediation, they discovered that the handyman who had been hired to do the work was dealing with each of them separately.
He was charging each of them the full amount instead of the split fee that had been agreed upon.
When they realized they had been had, the expressions on their faces were wonderful to behold.
Their friendship was renewed right on the spot.
I never did find out what happened to the handyman.
Culver City has a wonderful resource in its trained mediators who serve on the Landlord/Tenant Mediation Board.
Perhaps it is time to see how our talents can be used, not only in landlord-tenant disputes, but to find ways to assist city agencies in other types of mediation which may be needed here within our community.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue to serve Culver City.
Dr. Hoult, who serves the poet-in-residence of the newspaper, may be contacted at HOULTight@aol.com. Her next poem in the popular Body Parts series will appear in Friday’s edition.
