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Her Honor, the fifth woman Mayor of Culver City, Meghan Sahli-Wells. Photo, Todd Johnson.
Re “Mayor Meghan Bows in – and O’Leary Is the New Vice Mayor”
Introducing the new vice mayor of Culver City, second-term City Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, returning to the limelight.
Smoothly as melting ice cream, it happened.
His colleague Jim Clarke, launching his own first full four-year term, put the Irishman’s name into nomination.
“I didn’t know Jim was going to nominate me,” Mr. O’Leary said this afternoon of last night’s packed-house meeting in which popular Meghan Sahli-Wells rotated into the mayor’s chair.
“I didn’t know how it was going to go. But I know Jim already had said in the past that he was interested in being mayor on our (100th) anniversary (2017). wanted to be mayor.”
Second-term Councilman Andy Weissman was the other contender for vice mayor.
“Andy obviously had the opportunity of stating his claim,” Mr. O’Leary said. “And he didn’t. He supported Jim’s motion. So that was it.”
What can a vice mayor do between now and next April?
The opening was a little too convenient.
“Sit back, relax, call Joe Biden now and then,” said the cigar-smoking vice mayor.
And applaud Mayor Sahli-Wells’s agenda?
He demurred.
“I don’t think that is the role of a vice mayor,” Mr. O’Leary said. “It is not like being vice president and on a team. Meghan will be running the meetings, making suggestions for us to move in a certain direction. I will take those suggestions and make decisions on the directions that are best for Culver City.”
Moments after her elevation to the chief executive’s chair, Mayor Sahli-Wells rolled out an ambitious blended agenda, tinted with ideological favorites, that spanned “alternative energy, excellent transportation, safety, being visionary, attention to the arts,” a tightened relationship with the School District, making sure we are grounded in the present with our eyes firmly on the future.”
Mr. O’Leary’s response seemed to be “not so fast.”
(To be continued)
