While the heavily-backed Parcel Tax was winging its way to a onesided victory in yesterday’s School Board election, two separate faceoffs for the three open seats on the Board provided the buzz and drama in a fairly formful outcome.
Culver City elections are known for their scattershot shapelessness — anybody has a chance. But this one time, the mold held.
It was less surprising that Karlo Silbiger, Kathy Paspalis and Patricia Siever were the 1-2-3 winners early this morning than how they got there.
At the beginning of the campaign almost four months ago, Mr. Silbiger and Ms. Paspalis, a newcomer to community politics, were being popularly tabbed as the 1-2 finishers. Prof. Siever, an unknown quantity then, was consigned to the tossup category. The conventional wisdom was a shoulder shrug.
An Historic Moment
In the afterglow today, it must not be overlooked that this was a sterling moment in the long-developing political career of young Mr. Silbiger, a likeable second-generation member of one of Culver City’s most political-mnded families.
It is not hyperbolic to say that Mr. Silbiger, in his mid-20s and by two decades the youngest entry in the race, has been impressively practicing politics since he was 11 years old. The world of politics has been his toy ever since.
After being disappointed the last couple of years in failing to win commission appointments at City Hall, Mr. Silbiger has showed his deniers that he can control his own destiny by going out and winning office his way — getting the community to support him.
His victory party last night was jammed with high-profile stars of the community.
Although the results did not become known until 12:21 this morning, when most respectable people not only had gone to bed but were working on their third dreams, the election resolved into two separate, tense contests:
The outlines were the same in both, little-known vs. well-known, plus stylistic contrasts.
Ms. Paspalis, she of the low profile, nearly upset Mr. Silbiger, the heavy favorite, for first place. She came Halloween-close, within 63 votes of catching him. If the El Marino School mom had nudged a little more, she would have pulled off the shocker of the season.
The other battle pitted the classically opposing styles of Prof. Siever of West L.A. College — probably as little known across the community as Ms. Paspalis — against the familiar school community personality Alan Elmont for third place. The two of them would not have caught the frontrunners in the next couple of months. Conversely, the candidates behind them were far off their pace. Prevailing by a mere 117 votes in her first race, Prof. Siever edged the gregarious, encyclopaedic activist Mr. Elmont, who lost his second straight bid for office.
The numbers for the top four:
Mr. Silbiger — 2,785, 26.4%
Ms. Paspalis — 2,722, 25.8%
Prof. Siever — 1,646, 15.6%
Mr. Elmont — 1,529, 14.5%
Measure EE, the 5-year parcel tax, breezed as expected. For the next five years, owners of each parcel of land in Culver City will be billed $96 in an effort to bolster school revenues.
A two-thirds vote was required for passage. EE captured three-quarters of the ballots.
Yes — 3,384, 74.65%
No — 1,149, 25.35%
Since Mr. Silbiger, Ms. Paspalis and Prof. Siever will not be formally seated as School Board members for another month, Culver City election buffs will spend the interim debating headscratching aspects about the finish.
While Ms. Siever, widely experienced as a member of numerous community boards, last night was promising to bring creative thinking to revenue-raising for starving school budgets, a new idea popped up when the results came in:
Charging admission for the bi-weekly School Board meetings that may evolve into donnybrooks as the new and the old members will try to blend the challenges of their individual dynamics.
Among the new Board Five, there ain’t no violets in a mood to shrink.
Holdover Board members Steve Gourley infused a fading Board with atomic energy two years ago when they were elected, and now they will experience the other face of accommodation.
It is their turn to figure how to make their undeniably strong personalities mesh with the muscular wills of the idea king Mr. Silbiger, the idea queen Prof. Siever, and the mystery package who still is unproven in the public arena, Ms. Paspalis. An attorney and an independent thinker, Ms. Paspalis said last night the most suitable one-word description of her is “reasonable.” Standing by her side, her loyal friend Crystal Alexander, a force in finance at City Hall who hosted the candidate’s victory party, characterized her as “a bridgebuilder.”
At 6-foot-2 the tallest candidate, and, arguably, the most erudite member of the field, the statuesque Prof. Siever grew in confidence about her bid as her campaign progressed.
By the end, she was brimming with self-assurance.
“I felt no anxiety at all on Election Day,” Prof. Siever said this morning.
Like her new fellow Board members, Mr. Silbiger and Ms. Paspalis, the professor was accepting congratulations last night, late into the evening, when only the absentee ballots had been posted by the County Registrar.
But the mood was prescient because the order of finish of the six candidates on absentee ballots was identical to the final count.
It scarcely is hyperbolic to say Prof. Siever, who emerged heroically from a tragic family background, came from nowhere last summer. From a standing start as the last entry in a six-candidate field, she steadily soared, unnoticed by observers who are accustomed to having a thumb on all things electoral.
Because her late-hour registration made her candidacy appear as an after-thought to some — at their peril — she brought a barely acknowledged, carefully organized strategy to her campaign. That was crucial, probably the margin of victory.
As for the Rest
At the south end of the School Board race, Robert Zirgulis placed fifth with 824 votes, about half of Mr. Elmont’s total, 7.8% of the votes cast.
Gary Abrams finished sixth, 457 votes, 4.3 percent.
In an anomaly, former candidate Roger Maxwell who withdrew from the race, but too late to have his name removed from the ballot, was the technical sixth-place finisher at 568 votes, 5.4%.
