Tonight at 7 in Council Chambers, one week after the most devastating rebuke of his political career, City Councilman Gary Silbiger will re-hoist the banner of one of his several signal causes, a Youth Advisory Commission.
Normally, this would be a neon event for5 Mr. Silbiger. He has been pushing this so-far grounded cause throughout all of his years on the dais.
More than on regular Monday evenings, he sparkles when a topic that he has shepherded from birth is placed, like a proud trophy, before his Councilmates.
But there are extenuating circumstances tonight.
Mr. Silbiger was so profoundly wounded by the refusal of his colleagues to promote him from Vice Mayor to Mayor last week that he summarily rejected a later offer to close out his second term with a second-tier title, as Vice Chair of the Redevelopment Agency.
Will there be any lingering after-effects?
Which brings the Silbiger story around to one of the fascinating case studies on the City Council, Mehaul O’Leary.
What many of his backers like best about Mr. O’Leary is his double-barreled political personality.
Every Monday night, the Irishman seems to be having more fun than anyone in the room. But one inch beneath that frolicking exterior is the thoughtful mind of a very serious newcomer.
Mr. O’Leary cast the swing vote last Monday that decided the Mayor’s job for the next year in favor of Andy Weissman instead of Mr. Silbiger.
Instead of congratulating the victor, as is traditional for even the most shocked of losing candidates, Mr. Silbiger was furious that his colleagues had bypassed him, and he fired off testy salvos.
He unleashed strong language against what he characterized as the “traditional” advancement process without acknowledging the presence of extenuating circumstances.
One impediment that offended a majority of his peers was that if Mr. Silbiger had been elected, he would have served twice in the chair within a single four-year term on the Council.
Another dooming factor was that Mr. Silbiger never courted the vote of the pivotal Mr. O’Leary, an astonishing gaffe.
A Long Run-up
While the Vice Mayor assumed he would sail unchallenged into the Mayor’s job without campaigning, Mr. O’Leary began pondering the best choice for Mayor ‘way back in October, a half-year before Council Election Night.
Since Mr. O’Leary’s vote has not proven easy to pigeonhole during his first year on the Council, and he has voted often enough with the Silbiger-Chris Armenta alliance, perhaps Mr. Silbiger presumed the Irishman was his unwavering supporter.
That would have been a bad guess.
In an interview, Mr. O’Leary said that “it was not a difficult choice” to back Mr. Weissman over Mr. Silbiger.
“I spent six months evaluating who I thought would be the right guy to lead our city in these difficult economic times,” the Ireland native said. “I knew that I could not vote for someone who, in my opinion, was not keenly aware of the situation.”
After sitting beside both of them for a half-year, Mr. O’Leary was not quite beginning with blank slates. He had a sense of each one’s capabilities and potential.
But even politicians are more revelatory away from the stage.
Mr. O’Leary served separately on two-person subcommittees with both candidates. He had a chance to study them up close in private.
He was with Mr. Silbiger on the Brotman Medical Center subcommittee as the Culver City hospital officially emerged last month from a year and a half in bankruptcy.
Mr. O’Leary and Mr. Weissman formed the Economic Development subcommittee.
The Irishman came away from the two experiences with clarity about both of his colleagues.
Comparing the Differences
Although Brotman stands in the gleaming sunshine this afternoon, a year ago the hospital was powerfully struggling, which led Mr. O’Leary to wonder about, if not flatly question, Mr. Silbiger’s passive approach to problem-solving.
The two Council members were not going to rescue Brotman from insolvency. Rather, they were to provide insightful advice and a sense of a command of the situation.
“I did not see any urgency with Gary,” said Mr. O’Leary. “I did not know if he was fully with the program. I did not know how strong his awareness was. He needed to engage, in the narrow picture and the wider picture. In my opinion, he did not.”
By contrast, he said, “I was impressed with Andy’s knowledge and expertise on the Economic Development subcommittee. We got a lot done.”
