First of two parts
[Editor’s Note: As the newspaper noted earlier this week: “Community organizer Meghan Sahli-Wells will officially declare her candidacy for the City Council at a Campaign Kickoff event on Saturday morning at 11 at the sundial sculpture near Bill Botts Field in Culver City Park, 9710 Jefferson Blvd. This will be an invitation-only event.”]
Will destiny be Meghan Sahli-Wells’s pivotal companion in the forthcoming race for two seats on the City Council?
Maybe.
She is an eye-catcher.
Is she so refreshingly different from the recent run of candidates that voters — many of whom are not familiar with her yet at this early stage — will be struck by her accessible personality, her worldly ways and her distinct resume that they will decide Ms. Sahli-Wells is the tonic of change the Council needs?
No need to rush.
Election Day for the seats presently held by Gary Silbiger, who will be termed out, and Scott Malsin, who will not, is nearly 5 months off, Tuesday, April 13.
Like Jeff Cooper, the first candidate to file, Ms. Sahli-Wells knows that getting the drop on the clock and the calendar is crucial for an office-seeker with modest name recognition.
Her credentials are uniquely and flavorfully tailored to her apart-from-the-Culver City-mainstream life story, even if she spent her school years here, after the age of 11.
Why the Wells family moved from Laurel Canyon, where she was born, to Culver City, and then onto Europe for a decade and a half will be weaved into her narrative later.
Open Air Travel
Living abroad fulltime, interspersing occasional sallies back home to reunite wth family, she matriculated, she traveled widely, and she met the love of her life, married and started her family, on the Continent.
If you live in Culver City, you probably have seen her in the 2 1/2 years since she came home to stay with her two young sons and husband in tow.
You see, Ms. Sahli-Wells — much more euphonious than Wells-Sahli — travels exclusively on two wheels.
For this story, transcribed at the Grand Casino on Main Street, a reporter was standing out front at the appointed hour when Ms. Sahli-Wells, safety helmet, always and firmly in place, glided into view on her favorite bicycle, braked to an even stop, secured it, and strode inside for a late breakfast and an early interview.
Because it has been more than a century since political candidates last heavily traveled by bicycle, the trim and diminutive Ms. Sahli-Wells explained the bicycle is her transportation of choice for reasons of exercise and out of respect for the environment.
Emerging from a strongly literary childhood home, Ms. Sahli-Wells’s college year abroad, from UCLA, turned into a lengthy and blissfully happy adventure.
It all happened because her grandmother, who had wanted to study at the Louvre but couldn’t manage it at the time, promised to underwrite a study tour for young Meghan if she, too, wanted to move to Paris and live out her grandmother’s dream in modern times.
The rhythms of her fulfilled dream form the richest interlude of Ms. Sahli-Wells’s life.
(To be continued)
