One month past his 62nd birthday and halfway through his sixth year in Culver City, Jerry Fulwood, the exhausted City Manager, disclosed his pending retirement plans last night to a closed-door audience that spanned his nearest associates.
Even though he is a fastidiously private person, closely held to all but very few, everyone in the room knew what was coming.
Not that anyone — with several notable exceptions — wanted him to go because Culver City has achieved perhaps its longest and most impressive strides in modern history under his baton.
City Council members officially learned of many of Mr. Fulwood’s intentions last night, and they will hold another closed session on Wednesday to complete the transition discussion.
By internalizing the valleys and hills of his professional and personal streams, Mr. Fulwood, curiously, both enhanced his image as Mr. Nice Guy and irritated others who resented his seeming inaccessibility.
That is the typical burden of private people.
Your friends say, “His critics don’t know what they’re missing,” and his enemies say, “Thank goodness.”
His penchant for stoicism and his tendency for maintaining his imperturbable aplomb under the fiercest fire further frustrated foes and friends. Both wanted him to fight back when, almost embarrassingly, he was harshly criticized — albeit for opposite reasons.
Just a Glimpse
When he of the shaved head and superbly conditioned, compact, athletic build let his hair down — during occasional sallies as master of ceremonies for lighthearted city affairs, the curious of Culver City were treated to the most abbreviated glimpses of an engaging master of collegiality.
To most of the community, he arrived and he will leave as an arm’s length mystery, heavily tinted gray.
His record as an administrator remains to be written because it appears to be mixed.
How strong of a leader was he?
How were his concepts judged?
How clearly did he communicate the paths he preferred?
A Time of Change
Mr. Fulwood presided over the biggest governmental upheaval in Culver City’s 91-year history. The transition from a chief administrative officer-led City Hall to a city manager form was as complicated as the present global financial crisis, and as little understood, perhaps both inside and out.
Wounds were inflicted. Feelings were hurt. Was it because of the way changes were decided and engineered or because the players themselves were too sensitive?
Not clear. And it probably won’t be until well after Mr. Fulwood is gone, likely before the end of April.
New Manager and Timing
This will give his successor a chance to dampen all 10 toes in the budgetary process on the eve of the fiscal year, a better break than Mr. Fulwood caught when he entered office 10 days before a new fiscal year.
Reports of Mr. Fulwood’s departure have been walking on cat’s paws up and down the steps of City Hall ever since signing his second and final 3-year contract 2 1/2 years ago.
His legacy should be that under his stewardship, nearly a century after Culver City’s founding, the unique community finally grew into the mature, Los Angeles-worthy kind of destination that oldtimers only could dream about.
Don’t Get Personal
Except for being a passionate fan of country music, living on a ranch on the other side of Los Angeles, necessitating one of the heftiest driving challenges of anyone in the city, scant personal information about Mr. Fulwood has made its way into the public thoroughfare.
However, everyone down to the lowliest employee seemed on pseudo-intimate terms with the insistent rumor that in the spring of ’09, a few weeks before his three-year contract expires, the City Manager would be going home to stay with his family.
The surprise factor was on the order of telling your mother you are going to get married after living with the same girl for 20 years.
