It was knowable years in advance that when Andy Weissman eventually became Mayor of Culver City — supporters said it was his destiny — that he would be the single unflappable personality in the joint, even if City Hall was burning down around him.
It is one of his two or three most appealing qualities as a politician, denoting maturity and rock-intense leadership talent.
Even if, technically, he is the greenest member of a group in years served, he looks and acts as if he should be in charge, giving him the drop on rivals.
This quality is so ingrained in his persona that he probably gave off the same unmistakable leadership sparks 30 years ago at 29 as he does this afternoon, days after turning 59 years old.
One of two hometown boys on the City Council, imperturbability is at the heart of his DNA.
And he was unshakeable last night, even if the House-Burning-Down scenario came in the guise of boiling accusations from the Other Side.
One Qualified, One Not?
The vote tilt, said the Other Side, merely showed one man’s personal thirst for the glory of the job pitted against an honorable and deserving opponent who regarded it as his entitled promotion.
Outgoing Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger’s side — including his usual tandem partner Councilman Chris Armenta, 14 members of the public and the candidate himself — passionately and prolongingly argued that Mr. Silbiger alone was entitled to be elected Mayor. No further chatter needed, they said.
The actionable term term is “entitled” because of a supposedly cement-solid policy that actually is a loosey-goosey oral tradition.
Putty is the cousin-by-marriage of oral traditions. They are tricky because they are subjective — a Culver City history that will be examined elsewhere.
Denial of a perceived entitlement on grounds of logical reasoning that a majority of members agreed was more valid, catapulted Mr. Weissman into the winner’s seat.
He has toiled in the befogged vineyards of City Hall’s second-tier volunteer groups longer, cumulatively, than all of his colleagues have been in public life.
Shrubbery Behind the Victory
Longevity, though, was unrelated to his election except for the fact that longevity, over the years, brought him into hundreds of meetings which he turned into a laboratory for learning. He approached these assemblies with eyes wide open. Soon he learned to master the extremely slippery, moving-target art of growing into an effective politician.
Most weeks on most issues, Mr. Weissman is on the winning side, not because he is a lucky guesser. He has conquered the elusive discipline of navigation.
He is like a master sailor on the High Seas. He wins most of his races, not because he is piloting the fastest entry but because he has learned that the craftiest, most thorough competitor dominates a field — politics — where practitioners are notorious for corner-cutting.
These are the main qualities that have won him a following for 20 and more years. There is no trace of entitlement. He just , ploughs toward one often-mundane objective after another.
Viewed through the slender prism of last night’s tumult, Mr. Weissman’s ascension from ordinary Council member to the Mayor’s seat, in a single leap, may seem as mercurial as it was spectacular.
In actuality, it probably was neither.
Closer to workmanlike, his career is a slow-to-pay-off model many ambitious pols will find tempting to shrug off.
The stairway to stardom that is Mr. Weissman’s political resume has been a work-in-progress — almost undetectable by the public —since the1980s when he began weaving his way through barely visible, scarcely appreciated city commissions and recommendation groups.
These settings are the outer limits of politics as an avocation. They are farther from the center ring than even the suburbs.
Away from City Hall
Quite without a flair, naturally, he lawyers when he is not Councilmanning, overseeing a business-oriented general practice that will warrant headlines at least once every couple of decades.
In the months leading up to last night’s election, it was incumbent on both contenders to recruit the swing voter Mehaul O’Leary.
In this kind of showdown, Mr. Weissman was the favorite because he and the Dubliner had more in common — they entered the Council as two-thirds of the class of ’08, shared similar ambitions, and even though they lead strongly different personal and professional lives, as pols they have more alikes than disalikes.
Mr. O’Leary has known flamboyant moments on the dais, but not when it came time last night to make the most loaded step of his embryonic career.
Preferring unadorned language, he simply said, “I nominate Andy Weissman for Mayor.”
Learning from History
With the Silbiger camp robbed of both exclusivity and momentum, Mr. Armenta was left to file a substitute motion because “I am a little shocked” by the perceived detour from tradition.
“I will make a substitute motion to do the right thing,” he said, “to promote Gary Silbiger to Mayor and Andy Weissman to Vice Mayor. “
This was a lip-buttoning signal for Mr. O’Leary, Mr. Weissman and Mayor Scott Malsin.
When only Mr. Silbiger was left to second a motion to make himself Mayor, this was the match that burned down his last chance.
“What tactics?” Mr. Weissman replied this morning by answering a question with a question. “There weren’t any.
“I had a conversation with a Councilperson (Mr. O’Leary) elected last year when I was. I discussed with him the importance of each of us having a chance at becoming Mayor before someone else becomes Mayor for a second time during one term (Mr. Silbiger).
“There is a tradition that I never heard the other side dispute,” the Mayor said.
“Further, I don’t believe there is a tradition or protocol that automatically anoints the Vice Mayor as the next Mayor.”
That was the argument that Mr. Armenta (and Mr. Silbiger) employed. Mr. Weissman turned the issue around on Mr. Armenta.
“”Last year, it may be recalled, a new tradition was started when Christopher nominated the Mayor and Vice Mayor in a single motion. In previous years, it had been done separately.”
Finally, the just-minted Mayor Weissman tut-tutted his rival for his “lack of consistency when it comes to issues of personal concern. When he has the votes for an issue, then there is no problem with public notification or incomplete staff reports. When he lacks the votes, though, he becomes indignant and says ‘how dare you go forward’ in view of the absence of sufficient public notice and a defective staff report.”
Presently, Mr. Weissman’s recreational reading hours are occupied by the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best seller, “Team of Rivals,” which recounts President Lincoln’s chess-boarding tactics to defang and bring together his many philosophical and Presidential foes.
The thick tome may yield governing guidelines for Culver City.
