In this young century, hardly any Culver City resident has wanted to serve on the City Council more achingly than Mehaul O’Leary.
Foiled in his first attempt by personal document confusion and done in two years ago by his own questionable preparedness, he decided on an atypical political strategy for this election cycle.
Sincere humility. An apologetic posture
He was awash in authentic humility when he breezed through the campaign door and strode out into the community last summer.
A nice Catholic young man, he uttered a public confession.
A mea culpa.
Mr. O’Leary admitted that he was not properly qualified, that he was insufficiently backgrounded in vitals, and that he had not done his homework to run for Council.
He swore to be impressively ready the next time.
And so, when the next time arrived, he told audience after audience that he had traveled down two avenues — he had researched what a City Councilman needs to know and he had ardently plunged into virtual daily participation in communal affairs, joining clubs, making substantive donations, creating steady visibility.
He participated regularly in public meetings and he spoke out, forcefully, on controversial issues.
When it was time to make a real run at the Council in the past eight or nine months, much of Culver City, Mr. O’Leary was convinced, knew the name Mehaul O’Leary.
He proceeded to raise a personal record of $21,421 this campaign, a whopping $14,000 last month. For the campaign, he outraised six of his eight opponents.
Those were good omens, and last night he claimed the third and final open chair on the City Council for the next four years.
Surrounded by his wife Susan, his mother Eileen (visiting from Ireland) and scores of well-wishers last night at the Elks Lodge, he may have been the final person in the room to acknowledge he truly was a winner.
“I still am as nervous as a chicken,” Mr. O’Leary told a caller an hour before his victory was assured.
“I still cannot believe this is happening. I need somebody to confirm it for me.”
Mr. O’Leary captured 16 percent of the vote, and in a 9-person field, that translated into a victory.
Question: Entering the campaign, were you more confident or hopeful?
“I was absolutely more confident, but then I remembered how upset I was at defeat two years ago. In the last day or so, I pulled back. I became less confident.
“I reminisced on how disappointed I was. I did not want to build up my hopes so much I would be that disappointed again.”
Question: What is different from two years ago?
“Now I am even more nervous.
“I have just started on a new course in my life. A lot of people are depending on me to make the right decisions.”
Question: Are you up to it?
“Absolutely.”
“I think because of my belief, I may be less knowledgeable than some people who are involved in the city. So my workload is going to be that little bit more.”
Question: What is your first priority?
“The budget will come before us immediately.
“My first priority will be to explain to the groups we will have to give bad news to (because of budget cuts) that I will reverse those decisions as soon as we are able to generate new revenue.
“Revenue generation will come after looking at each individual area of this city completely differently than has been done before.
“Unfortunately, we have businesses that have affected our bottom line by closing, going out of business, such as Robinson-May.
“There is no sense of urgency in the city at fixing this loss in sales tax revenue. I want to be able to monitor everything on a weekly basis. I want to be sure that we, as a city, are on top of the budget prior to going into the two-year (cycle) budget sessions.
“There is a business sense that this city is missing,” said the Washington Boulevard business owner.
