It does not exactly parallel breaking up the Beatles, Martin and Lewis, Rowan and Martin or Martin and van Buren.
But a favorite School District act will be busted up in a few months when Steve Gourley’s single term on the School Board skids to a noisy stop while his pal Scott Zeidman remains back in the firing zone.
While Mr. Gourley has been seen as a lone ranger throughout his political career that spans two centuries, he and Mr. Zeidman became as close as twins during the last 3½ years on the Board.
Both are attorneys, and in spite of their relative nearness in age, they resembled a father-son pairing, probably owing to Mr. Gourley’s longevity. This is Mr. Zeidman’s maiden voyage.
Strangers going in, “we became pals during the campaign,” Mr. Gourley said. “I liked what he was saying, and his enthusiasm for doing it. He liked what I was saying, and that I could provide him with a little savvy in how these kinds of things work.”
Not That Much Alike
Their personalities are as distinctive as hard and soft, meaning there were sufficient natural barriers that could have kept them from becoming close.
Mr. Gourley, who grins and laughs easily, broke into peals of laughter when it was suggested there is a sheen of father-son to their relationship. “He does remind me of a younger version of myself,” said the elder member of the firm.
About a dozen years separate their ages, possibly depending, friends say, on the length of Mr. Gourley’s 61st year.
Regulars who have watched the twice-monthly School Board meetings agree the indescribable element called chemistry thrives between them.
“From the beginning, we were both interested in the same things,” Mr. Gourley said, “keeping the schools as good as they are and trying to make them better. We also were trying to overcome the old bureaucracy of Culver City at the same time as dealing with every bureaucracy above us who were demanding this test and that test.
“So we both had a true and, God help us, spiritual belief in the job and what we could do for the children.”
What were their alternating strengths and weaknesses that played off of each other?
“Mine,” said Mr. Gourley, “was that I had been through this before. I knew that you didn’t always judge people by what they were saying. They might be saying something to get to a different point. “
Then one of the most outspoken politicians in the post-Peloponnesian War era dropped a personality bombshell.
“Believe it or not, I have generally been able to the mediator, the compromiser, in a Board group or a Council group. Amazingly.
“My last four years on the City Council I spent with Ed Wolkowitz and Mike Balkman on one side, Albert Vera and Jim Boulgarides on the other.
“Interestingly, Albert and I bonded during our campaign. At one of the speeches I gave in Fox Hills when they asked, ‘What can you do about the buses coming through?’ I told them:
“ ‘For the next month, if you have problems with the buses, you call me. After the election, you call Albert.’
“Albert and I got along very well.
“At that meeting of candidates, I suggested that each of us do somebody else’s speech because we knew all of them by heart.”
Mr. Gourley will be missed, and not just by Mr. Zeidman.
