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Since the day he took office 5 1/2 years ago, I have defended nearly every burp by City Manager Jerry Fulwood as ardently as if we were related.
For two reasons:
For almost each one of the 275 weeks Mr. Fulwood has been in charge of City Hall, some red-faced yahoo on the City Council has gone after him with a rhetorical gun in one hand and a fork in the other.
The reason is as plain as the color of Mr. Fulwood’s skin. Except for my third mother-in-law, Mr. Fulwood, in public, is about the sweetest, least offensive, most non-combative and most vulnerable person I ever have met.
The second reason, shield in hand, I reflexively have sprinted to defend him was that I believed he had been an executive beacon, a strong (but hardly fault-free) leader.
The trouble was, his mere presence in the City Manager’s chair seemed to bring out the worst in certain eye-bulging members of the City Council.
A couple months ago, Mr. Fulwood announced his retirement, effective in the early spring when his bright and young (we presume) successor grips the doorknob.
Smart Democrats
With that in mind, I took a chair at last night’s lively meeting of the Culver City Democratic Club. A few astute people opened my eyes to considerations in the search for a new City Manager I had unfortunately overlooked.
‘A’ Is for Astuteness
Catherine Yanda, Tom Camarella and Laura Stuart delivered a bushel of excellent suggestions that I hope all five Council members will gargle and swallow before making a choice.
Nearly all of their ideas were keyed to one central complaint that I have treated lightly:
Aside from the quality of Mr. Fulwood’s work, he has been Casper the Friendly Ghost, kindly at all times, but also consistently invisible.
He never has been a man of the community, and that was the thesis that the smart people kept hammering at last night.
They said that needs to change, and of course they are correct.
Coffee Where?
You won’t shmooze with Mr. Fulwood over coffee at a working-man’s restaurant on the West Side or at the Roll ‘n Rye or anywhere else in town.
Residents of Culver City, the ordinary ones and those more prominent if not more important, never have encountered Mr. Fulwood walking down their streets.
You are not likely to drive through any intersection and honk at him because he is not there.
This is far more serious than airily
promising a cosmetic fix.
Wade into the Community Itself
Since Culver City is a small town, the person with the most political power needs to be a man of the people, even if she is a woman.
Someone else phrased it more pragmatically:
Ms. Yanda helpfully underscored the should-have-been-obvious fact that Mr. Fulwood never has dropped in on a Democratic Club meeting, or that of any club.
I am talking just sitting in, not giving an address.
Emphatically and sadly, Mr. Fulwood and residents do not know each other.
A pity.
I had overlooked this most salient point until Ms. Yanda brought it up.
Mr. Fulwood is nearing the end of his second three-year contract, a long time to be in the same high-flying job.
A Small Circle
I don’t think it is being exaggerative to say that the only Culver City people he knows are the faces of those who attend Council meetings in Council Chambers — not the Charlie on the street.
Upon reflection, Mr. Fulwood has had a most impersonal relationship with our town.
How can you meaningfully govern people you don’t know anything about?
Yes, you can get a feel when you announce that you are studying a proposed building in one part of town, and that is The Mob’s signal to start behaving as if they never have been to school.
Hi, Jerry. How’s the Family?
But I am talking about getting to know people separately, individually, down to their kishkes, over tea, people you get to know by the way they talk, the way they think, certain favorite pieces of clothing.
You get to know their oldest child is in her final year at Culver High, that Mom just started working Christmas relief last week and that Dad is worried about being laid off before God Jr. is inaugurated.
If the new City Manager is coming to stay awhile, he had better bring his personality and his walking shoes with him.
