At 10 minutes past 4 on Monday afternoon, Mayor Mehaul O’Leary broke into a sprint across the floor of the underground garage at City Hall.
Slightly tardy for the start of three days of budget hearings upstairs, he was rushing from one of his numerous political meetings or his business, running the Irish pub Joxer Daly’s.
By this date next month, his accelerated trot will be slowed – not necessarily happily – to a leisurely pace.
A month before his 51st birthday, Mr. O’Leary, quite eligible bachelor, will be politically unemployed.
Most recently the term-limited mayor has been pondering a run, in a couple years, for the seat held by Jerome Horton on the influential state Board of Equalization.
Twenty days before the three-seat City Council election, which formally/likely will end the Culver City dimension of Mr. O’Leary’s political days, he is holding his cards three inches from his vest.
He is not saying exactly what he will do because he has not made up his mind about what he wants to try next.
Increasingly over the last eight years, an exhausting range of options have arisen. Mr. O’Leary eagerly has leaped at nearly evert opportunity to sit on a board/commission as a result of holding a chair o the City Council.
Like his fellow termed-out colleague Andy Weissman, the vice mayor emphatically would have run again – if the law had allowed.
Both men are regarded as perching at the peak of their political skills.
Once Mr. O’Leary gave thought to running for a Los Angeles City office. While such a notion seems to have been scotched, seats will be open next year. Will the attraction be too alluring for the Irishman?
He hinted – but did not flatly say – that a surprise may be awaiting his listeners at next Thursday’s annual Mayor’s Luncheon.
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