Attn. Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and City Councilman Chris Armenta:
This morning Assistant City Manager Martin Cole made a telephone call to fulfill a dangling promise he made at last night’s Council meeting.
Mr. Cole dialed the County office in charge of the animal shelter in Carson to verify if officials would agree, in writing, to transport animals from Culver City directly to a privately owned shelter in Hawthorne instead of the County facility in Carson.
The answer, however, will have to wait until tomorrow. Since this is Veteran’s Day, some government offices were closed.
Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta had vigorously advocated at last night’s meeting for the Council to approve a revised twin shelter arrangement for Culver City, based entirely on statements that two shelter-related County officials gave to the Council. Their skeptical colleagues demurred, insisting that they would require formal proof of the County’s intentions before they would cast supporting votes.
And so the Council was divided on how to proceed, with Andy Weissman and Mayor Scott Malsin urging a delay until proof arrived, while Mehaul O’Leary stood undeclared.
At that point, Mr. Armenta turned to city staff. He asked if a way could be found out of this dilemma to hold an immediate vote that, hopefully, would be unanimous. City Manager Jerry Fulwood stepped in and said he thought Mr. Cole should answer the Councilman’s question.
Pause here for a moment.
This is where a little inside-baseball-type discussion entered the long, winding evening’s drama. What followed next looked as if it had been rehearsed.
Was the scenario pre-arranged? “Yes and no,” said Mr. Fulwood.
“It couldn’t exactly have been planned, but let’s say we were prepared,” he said. “During Council meetings, all of us are watching. Sometimes we talk back and forth with each other. We don’t know, of course, what the Council is going to do. But we like to be prepared.”
At issue was whether upper-level County officials would agree to widen the terms of their contract with Culver City, as junior-level County employees had stated at the meeting. Mr. Weissman and Mr. Malsin said the word of non-decisionmakers was too risky. They said the Council should hold off a week or two until City Hall secured an official response. They, however, were in the minority.
Now back to Mr. Fulwood. He said that while the Council was arguing, Mr. Cole leaned over to him. “Martin had thought of a twist, and he shared it with me,” Mr. Fulwood said. “He had a possible solution.”
Mr. Cole’s alternative was almost identical to what Mr. Weissman, with a single, subtle exception. Whereas Mr. Weissman wanted to wait days or weeks until the County responded, Mr. Cole suggested going ahead and voting, but on a tentative basis, on the presumption that the County would go along with the expanded terms for its agreement with Culver City.
It was, in fact, a provisional or conditional vote, although such pejorative words never surfaced. Applying Mr. Cole’s strategy, if the County balked at the change in terms, the City Council was not locked in. It could return to the topic and plot a new solution.
If Mr. Cole makes a connection with his telephone call tomorrow morning, the answer will be known far in advance of next Monday’s Council meeting.
