Part 1 of a series
[img]428|left|Mark Scott||no_popup[/img] On opening day of his first full week as the new City Manager of Culver City, posture-perfect Mark Scott, tall and slender — half of which also was new — strode, confidently but not too confidently, through the doorway of the highest-ceilinged room on the top floor of City Hall.
Aesthetically a blend of tradition and modernity, he presents exactly as you would expect the chief executive of an ambitious, middle-sized latter-day community to look:
Seamlessly professional, business-like and as immediately accessible as the neighbor guy who has leaned over your back fence ever since you moved in.
In a sometimes quietly ascetic way, the message is telegraphed that he is in charge, but, importantly, without reminding you.
His fairly generous thatch of silver hair is tidily, but not fastidiously, parted. His rimless spectacles nicely round out his comfortably measured, professorial manner.
Faintly, there is a resemblance to Woodrow Wilson.
Now, about Mr. Scott’s recently altered appearance.
There Is Less, Not More, of Him
Throughout his 20 years of managing three distinct medium communities, from Beverly Hills to Spartanburg in South Carolina to the Heart of Screenland, he has been pretty consistently 6-foot-3.
It is the width that has changed.
As soon as he appeared in the door frame, he looked significantly different from the way he did two months ago.
He had bopped into town for a few hours several weeks after being lured back to his native Southern California by the five gentlemen of the City Council.
Flashing a door-opening smile, he explains that he has slimmed down 25 pounds since February.
“So it has been gradual, and intentional,” he says.
Preferring a direct rather than circuitous scientific approach to shedding, “I quit eating as much.”
With a grin, he says that he has veered toward a healthier selection of foods.
“I will be 60 years old in November.
“I need to be watching myself a little more carefully.
“I am eating vegetables, fruits, better grains and definitely fewer fried foods.”
Because he has shaved two or three inches from his middle, “all of my clothes are hanging on me these days.”
Having dropped all of his weight in Spartanburg, where he was completing a 5 1/2-year term as City Manager, Mr. Scott has not yet updated his wardrobe.
“I haven’t started because I figured, why buy them and then move? If nothing else, I am practical.”
Personally, like many gentlemen of his generation, Mr. Scott is not a serious shopper.
“But my wife (Carol) will more than make up for me.”
As the newest boss in town, naturally the Fresno native would like to make a favorable impression on curious listeners in his new surroundings and assign heroic motivations to his weight loss.
“I would like to say the reason is admirable. But the truth is I had neck surgery. When I came off of that, I lost a little bit of my appetite. Once I got rolling, it was a lot easier to keep going.
“It really is not very admirable,” he says, self-effacingly.
One issue that haunted his retired predecessor, Jerry Fulwood, all six years of his stewardship at City Hall — a complaint that he lived inconveniently, unacceptably distant from Culver City, preventing him from participating in civic events — seemed like a prudent starting place for the City Manager.
Question: Are the Scotts living in Culver City?
“Yes, in hotels. I have hit four already,” and then diplomatically he added, “all of them in Culver City. I will probably get to the rest of them before I find something. I haven’t actually started looking.
“I have been on the job four days, and I have not been here in town very much to find something.”
This afternoon is Mr. Scott’s one-week anniversary in Culver City.
“I arrived last Tuesday, right before the City Council meeting. I drove across the country, and I arrived about 2 o’clock. I did four nights and parts of five days, about 10 to12 hours a day. “
Mr. Scott maintained his cross-country concentration “by watching what goes on out the window. I am fascinated by people. I am fascinated by this country.”
Studying the passing scene correctly suggested that Mr. Scott is a student, if not a scholar, of history.
“The Progressive period is the one I am most fascinated by. Most city managers would be, because our profession came out of that era. Of late, my interest has been of the New Deal Era, for obvious reasons.
“FDR obviously did some very bold things to make the economy turn around. What people have failed to appreciate is how many years it took before the country started thinking he was being successful.
“He went though years of accusations of failure before people finally said, ‘This may have contributed to the turnaround.’
“Juxtapose that over what we are doing today. How do you measure a few months on the same scale with the New Deal?
(To be continued)
