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On the Day After Father’s Day
Last evening when we had just returned home from a late afternoon movie, I was buzzing the garage door shut when I heard a voice calling out. Immediately, I reopened the door, and there was Barbara, our next-door neighbor.
“Did you hear from your sons today?” she asked. “Better than that,” I said. “We had breakfast together.”
Some of you know that my boys and I were estranged for many years, the final score of an acrimonious divorce in 1990. Our restored relationship, with two out of the three sons, has been healing on a weekly basis for nearly two years. For one son to have climbed out of bed at 7 yesterday morning to make the breakfast date was akin to driving from New York to Los Angeles for a hamburger, and then driving right back. At every parting, no exception, my other son says, “I love you, Dad. And say hello to Diane.” Precious, irreplaceable moments, even, or especially, at 27 and 24…
Counting Noses — and Emails
Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger may be striking out with his pet agenda just as frequently with the new City Council majority as he did with the old Council.
But he surely has raised consciousness all across Culver City about the public notification process. Even though he routinely carries a reasonable subject to extreme lengths, Mr. Silbiger has done the good deed of alerting calmer minds to the significance of notification.
Tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council meeting at City Hall marks the exhumation of still another Silbiger-stamped corpse from the previous Council’s cemetery, a debate over whether to hire an animal control officer.
Before anyone asks, Shelly Wolfberg, Assistant to City Manager Jerry Fulwood, reported this morning that the 716 subscribers to City Hall’s Master Notification List, the Friends of Culver City Animals and County officials (who presently handle animal control for Our Town) all have been emailed tonight’s agenda and extended an invitation to participate in the sweaty debate that refuses to die.
City Hall says it can budget $130,000 for an animal control officer, if the Council slips approval under the rope at deadline tonight, minutes before it approves a budget for the new fiscal year.
Why does hiring an animal control officer feel like your ex-wife burgling your home?
Former Mayor Alan Corlin asks: “Unless you have a place to put the animals, what is the point of hiring an animal control officer?”
Mr. Corlin also wants to know: “If the main purpose of an animal control officer is canvassing the community (for unlicensed pets), do we need a fulltime employee?”
Mr. Corlin resurrects three other queries from his years on the City Council: “Since an animal control officer would be only one person, when would he work? During what hours are pets likely to run away? What if my dog jumps over the fence into Los Angeles?”…
Georgia, You Are on My Mind
If anyone out there in Newspaperland knows Georgia Washington (which sounds like a creative name) of San Pedro, ask her to contact me.
Ms. “Washington” sounds like my kind of girl. If, heaven forbid, I were to shoot and kill a person, Ms. “Washington,” no doubt, would dash to my defense. She would argue that the victim committed the egregious error of bad timing. He walked in front of my weapon when I was practicing my aim. Ergo, I am innocent.
Ms. “Washington,” who does not appear to be educated, apparently wants to be known as the defender of anyone who is guilty. In a letter to her hometown newspaper this morning, Ms. “Washington” rose to the defense of one of the genuinely naughty people in Congress, U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach). A Sacramento blogger uncovered last month a case of gross fiscal negligence in Ms. Richardson’s private life. Aggressive investigations by South Bay journalists turned up the fact that in recent months, Ms. Richardson has allowed three homes she “bought” to go into default while she spent her mortgage money elsewhere.
Ms. “Washington,” who may have a connection to Ms. Richardson’s office, explains, ingeniously, in her letter: “(Ms. Richardson) is an easy target; the district she represents is less affluent than most; she is a woman and a minority. The way she handles her personal finances has nothing to do with her capabilities for handling the public’s business.” No wonder she signed her missive “Georgia Washington”…
