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Is stiff-armed political correctness invading City Hall, more specifically City Council meetings?
City Manager Jerry Fulwood sprang a surprise on the 5 City Councilmen at Tuesday night’s fairly private meeting at the Courtyard by Marriott.
Idly, as if he were merely kicking a can down the road, he wondered if it weren’t time to drop the solemn, succinct moment that is set aside for an invocation to open every Council meeting.
Bingo. A million bucks worth of fireworks blowing up in a single, sky-high burst.
There has not been an opening this irresistibly delicious for the iconoclastic Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger since he came onto the City Council 6 years ago. Getting rid of one more tradition without having to work for it. What more could a thirsting liberal ask for?
He might have sunk to his knees, except it would have looked too much like prayer, and by now you know what they think of prayer at City Hall, don’t you?
Heaven help us. Oops. Well, at least Entrada Office Tower project help us.
Only Takes a Nano-Second
I never have timed Mr. Fulwood’s weekly, and faithfully innocuous, invocation a few minutes after 7 o’clock each Monday night. It runs about 30 seconds. It is so bland that it would not offend the stupidest Muslim extremist who hangs out in Culver City. The most pathetic fanatic could not take umbrage even if you punched him in the nose before Mr. Fulwood speaks.
If Mr. Silbiger will forgive the extraordinary liberty I am about to take, this was an interlude that only could have been thought up in heaven, or at least above the clouds.
Forget the Robert Sherwood comedy “Idiot’s Delight.” This golden moment was an atheist’s delight. This was the equivalent of handing a mouse an unopened package of low-cal cheese and wishing him a happy 4th of July.
What would you suspect prompted Mr. Fulwood to raise such an issue — no doubt intentionally , in almost complete privacy, when the normal watchdogs would be at a considerable distance and probably never would hear about it?
Why? Why?
When I asked Mr. Fulwood why the next day, he said:
“It was just something that has been done for a number of years.”
Hmm.
Then he said: “I believe it is good to visit issues and see what others’ thoughts are.”
Fine, but the matter of whether the supposedly solemn invocation will survive one more week, or until next year when Mr. Fulwood is expected to move into retirement is not clear.
Truthfully, I have paid such random attention to Mr. Fulwood’s words that he may have been repeating the same thoughts every Monday night. He said he scrupulously shapes his message so there is not a hint of reference to any kind of god that the looniest fanatic in town might claim to worship.
No one — except You Know Who — seemed to endorse Mr. Fulwood’s implied break with tradition.
Pass the Peanut Butter, Please
Mr. Silbiger was a kid surrounded by 12 full jars of peanut butter. He advanced the horrible notion that a different inspirational ding-dong could be invited into Council Chambers every Monday night. By Week II, that would turn the moment into an unpalatable circus.
Mr. Fulwood, meanwhile, never said he was tired of doing it, and he insisted no one is putting any heat on him to kill the invocation.
At the end of Tuesday night, the subject was left dangling. “Let me think it over,” said Mr. Fulwood who, alone, will make the call. Like the Supreme Court, or a coquettish girl, he gave no clue as to when Answer Day might dawn.
