Now I know why my parents did not name me Betsy Regalado at birth.
I would have spoken up. She, puzzlingly, did not.
The Acting President of West Los Angeles College made an uncomfortably disappointing debut in Council Chambers, a frightful start that was self-inflicted.
The evening-long theme at last night’s City Council meeting was that the neighbors of West L.A. College were disdainfully snubbed by West and its most recent President, Dr. Mark Rocha, while the college was, apparently unilaterally, changing a five-year-old Memorandum of Understanding to accommodate its current desires.
Only Israel has worse public relations than West L.A. College.
Since opening in 1969, the college’s smartest leaders have been stumped every year trying to figure out a way to sell furnaces to Eskimos, sweat bands at South Beach and make friends instead of enemies in Culver City.
It would have been just my luck that Ms. Regalado would have been single and available between one of my marriages or divorces, and we would have gone out.
As a lavish first-date spender, I would have asked, daintily, whether she wanted London broil or a hot dog, and the enigmatic Ms. R would have replied, demurely, “I don’t know. You choose.”
A blind man in a driving snowstorm could have impressively answered the drop-dead question City Councilman Jeff Cooper put to President Regalado as the historic bitterness between the college and Culver City resurfaced with a closed fist.
Madame President, by now you have been at West long enough to know about the stinky relations between West and City Hall, between West and its residential neighbors.
Two weeks ago when we were visiting our 2-year-old grandson — just after teaching him to say “My…three…favorite…letters…are…G…O…P” — Shmuley asked, since he doesn’t live here, “How are things between West and Culver City?”
Since you know feelings are ragged, even if you are an academic, you don’t instinctively throw up a roadblock.
It would have taken no more than a hiccup for the reluctant President R. to say “Yes, of course,” when Mr. Cooper posed a decidedly harmless, unloaded question for her:
“Are you willing, right now, right here, in front of us and the audience, to negotiate with the residents and become a good neighbor?
“Are you willing to answer that?”
President R. waited so long to answer that I thought she must have been stuck at one of Max Paetzold’s famously long Culver City signal lights.
It was so obvious that Ms. Regalado could have instantly performed a miracle cure for bleeding relations by merely answering affirmatively and succinctly.
In her defense, perhaps she is one of those risk-averse people who believe they will imperil their careers if they diverge from company policy.
If Mr. Cooper had inquired about her shoe size, I would have understood Ms. Regalado blushing, looking down at the floor, counting the tiles and responding, “Much too personal.”
If only she had thoughtlessly blurted out “Yes, we want to be good neighbors. Naturally we will negotiate in good faith.”
Since Ms. Regalado and I have not — yet — met, and she probably is willing to hold off for two more millennia, I will guess that she is a lovely lady.
I wish she would have proven it last night.
