At the outset of his State of the City address this afternoon at the Mayor’s Luncheon, Chris Armenta joked that when he heard the President was coming to town at the same hour, he feared he would be doing a solo act on the second floor of the Radisson Hotel.
The 300 diners chuckled, but they could not have known the seeming throwaway line was not a laughing matter.
Mr. Armenta’s always authentically jovial mien clouded a deeper sting he felt.
As Mayor of the community hosting President Obama’s fat fundraising event at Sony Studios late this afternoon, he anticipated a call to join the deep-pocketed revelers. It never came, and that was disheartening.
Matter of Protection
On the other end of the dais, the mood was cautiously on the flipside.
Taking a break from having quietly fended off the not-so-playful revelers in the Police Officers Assn. for the past year and a half, Police Chief Don Pedersen has spent the last two weeks primping — in a security sort of way.
The chief has been busily coordinating strategy in and around the Sony lot with the Secret Service among others for Mr. Obama’s anticipated 90-minute run-through.
Mr. Pedersen did not want to talk about the planning or execution of tactics until tomorrow.
The 31st edition of the Mayor’s Luncheon went south, and that was a positive. Following a long run at the barnlike Vets Auditorium, which has not been glamourous since the day before it was built 60 years ago, the community business assembly was shifted to the dramatically more fashionable Radisson Hotel.
Mr. Armenta, who steps down from the Mayor’s office at Monday night’s City Council meeting, shrugged away his Presidential disappointment to deliver a sunny and snappy 17-minute report.
After introducing the newest face at City Hall, Daniel Hernandez, late of Santa Barbara, as the new director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Dept.,the mayor optimistically set the scene.
“Hard to believe that Culver City is not immune to the global economic challenges,” he said. “But we are in better fiscal shape than many other communities.”
Although City Manager John Nachbar, today’s emcee, said recently that it may be necessary to lay off as many as 100 persons from city service, Mr. Armenta said while the times are grim, there are promising strands of encouraging financial news.
The night may not be as long and dark as pessimists fear, he suggested.
He said that revenues derived from sales tax, the bed tax and the utility users’ tax are flowing into City Hall at a “slightly” better rate than had been forecast.
Even though crime is down, even though the Fire Dept. is one of the nine highest rated fire agencies in the United States, and even though Culver CityBus claims a similar lofty national ranking, the Senior Center, based on comparative applause, is the community’s most popular institution.
Not long before Mr. Armenta was speaking, an obnoxious 10-person enclave of Obama supporters/protestors engineered a bizarre stunt in Palo Alto at Mr. Obama’s first fundraiser of the day.
The President joined a chorus of celebrated politicians at a splashy breakfast fundraiser costing $35,800 per person, with $5,000 going to the campaign, the rest to the Democratic National Committee. The event drew about 150 persons.
Mr. Obama was reported outraged when woman in a white suit stood up to interrupt him in the middle of his speech and said, “Mr. President we wrote you a song.”
Even though the President pleaded with the woman to desist, and looked to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for relief, the other 9 people at her table, on cue, arose and sang out the following lyrics:
Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where's our change?
We'll vote for you in 2012, yes, that's true
Look at the Republicans — what else can we do
Even though we don't know if we'll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it's true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people's holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley 23 hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain't right
We paid our dues, where's our change?
