[Editor’s Note: See information below on Claire’s Place Foundation.]
Forget the boring drumbeat of drip-drop questions about the arcanity of the School District budget.
Or the constantly recycled inquiries about the disputed capital improvements projects.
This was show business, teenage- style.
This was a forum where the audience actually paid attention and participated.
It was not the most important question of the School Board candidates’ race toward Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, just the one promising the funnest, most titillating answers.
Toward the end of the richly entertaining student version of a Candidates Forum last night inside the happy, noisy The Actor’s Gang, jammed to its brick-laden walls, came this arresting inquiry:
“If you were stranded on a desert island, which fellow candidate would you choose to be your compadre?”
Scott Zeidman: “Nancy (Goldberg) would be great company because we could talk and talk and talk. I am going to leave it at that.”
Nancy Goldberg: “Zeidman went to school with my son, so I can find out what went on.”
Gary Abrams: “Just has to be a female,” a response that drew the most appreciative cheer.
Robert Zirgulis: “Gary Abrams and I have a lot in common, and we would have a lot to talk about.”
Laura Chardiet: “I don’t think Nancy and I would have much chance of getting off by ourselves. I would have to say it would be one of the guys, I am pretty sure. Later on, I will feel their muscles to see which one, and then decide.”
Even closer to the end came a similar popcorn-light query intended to give listeners a more human grip on how the five candidates think.
What historical figure would you like to talk to?
Ms. Goldberg: Eleanor Roosevelt.
Mr. Abrams: Malcolm X.
Mr. Zirgulis: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Ms. Chardiet: Shakespeare.
Mr. Zeidman: Abraham Lincoln.
Most of the candidate forums the last five weeks have been deadly serious events, ranging somewhere between a funeral and a scolding.
The city’s official Laugh Tabulator reported that two chuckles were heard — prior to last night.
Sponsored by Kids Scoop Media and emceed by Michelle Mayans in the name of the Claire’s Place Foundation, it was snappily paced, and surely it left a favorable after-taste with the frolicking students exposed to face-to-face politics for the first time.
One candidate remarked, privately, that few of the questions corresponded to School Board responsibilities.
But the teens were not going to poke and probe until they determined, for example, the two contenders who are most knowledgeable about the District’s $53 million budget.
They wanted to know what the present Board or the new Board can do about real-life, everyday problems they confront on the campus of Culver City High School and the Middle School.
And their questions were answered in a style that has come to be familiar on the election trail:
Mr. Abrams and Mr. Zirgulis steadily lambasted the Board for not being sufficiently responsive, for being sneaky and deceptive; Ms. Chardiet pledged to consult with parents and District authorities in quest of solutions to thorny issues; Ms. Goldberg expressed sympathy for the put-upon students and wondered why relief was so elusive; and after others had had their turn, Mr. Zeidman, the single incumbent in the race for two seats, would explain, succinctly, why — frequently — the problem was legally beyond the ken of the Board.
Returning to Sender
After battling a nagging cold this month, the socko-energetic Ms. Chardiet of earlier forums smashingly returned to form.
Maybe it was the environment of The Actor’s Gang that reawakened her earlier career plans to vest her professional life in the entertainment universe.
Animatedly, she was moving around on the stage where the five of them sat (some of the time) behind a table, breaking into song, trading quips, spirited repartee, effervescent, cheerleader-strong, sometimes almost a peer of many in the stadium-style seats — all of this being shrubbery that surrounded impressively informed, realistic answers. In many cases, she called upon career experiences.
Meanwhile, Ms. Mayans, who organized the successful evening, spoke later of the charitable cause she had alluded at the outset while screening a video of a certain young woman:
“Claire is a remarkable 14-year-old girl born with cystic fibrosis who has been in and out of the hospital all of her life. She set up a foundation to help children living with CF and their families.
“My friend attended a Make a Wish Foundation event where Claire was being granted a wish. She wished for her bedroom to be remolded.
“My friend was taken by her remarkable spirit. Simultaneously, I had just seen her on Tedx. I was so impressed by how positive she is and continues to be.
“I felt it was a good match for the work I do with Kid Scoop Media. Claire was born and raised Culver City. She only recently moved 15 miles away.
“Contributions can be made directly through her website.”
http://clairesplacefoundation.org/
