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Two reasons I love election season in Culver City:
The socialization factor and the immediacy of news.
Mingling with the most involved people in the community several times a week — instead of just on Monday evenings at City Council meetings — is a bonus during political campaigns.
Whether the School Board or the City Council is at stake, it almost does not make a difference.
Out Among Them
The idea is to be out in the community, among excited, engaged, and engaging, people who care whether 9900 Culver goes through, or whether Bob Champion prevails on South Sepulveda, or whether Scott Malsin gets the kinds of developments he thinks are appropriate at both northerly corners of Washington and Centinela.
Last Thursday night when the Culver City Homeowners Assn. sponsored a City Council Candidates Forum at the Vets Auditorium, I finally shook hands with City Hall’s newest significant executive (there really are several insignificant ones).
Jeff Muir, the new Chief Financial Officer, turned out to be the second person I know in Culver City who is attempting to restore the popularity of crewcuts.
Earlier this month at the first Candidates Forum, a train wreck of a program at the Senior Center, I schmoozed pleasantly with the charming Linda Russell, wife of the most inconoclastic entry in the Council race.
Executive at (Sweaty) Work
When I arrived at El Marino Language School last Wednesday night for another Candidates Forum, little Laura Stuart, who is supposed to be important, was shifting dinosaur-sized tables around the cafeteria as if she were a muscular member of a brawn construction crew.
I was shivering last Thursday night when I walked into the Vets for the Candidates program, bundled up in a scarf and a cozy heavyweight raincoat.
And there was the timer of the evening, John Kuechle, in short sleeves, looking as if this were July 21, not Feb. 21. “It’s mind over matter,” he said as I blew on my little hands. Mr. Kuechle’s wife said his choice of clothes was understandable. He grew up in Minnesota. I wonder if he ever fished in Lake Woebegone.
I don’t know if you could have hung meat in that room at the Vets, but Loni Anderson brought her own heater, which I unsuccessfully sought to share.
Back to School Night
Or take Tuesday night of last week. School Board member Scott Zeidman had called an emergency-type Community Meeting to hear the opinions of families on the budget cuts that now are only hours away.
You may read about these events the next day in an online newspaper, but nothing equals the exhilaration of actually being there.
Mr. Zeidman rushed in the door of Lin Howe School a little before 5 with an armload of pizza boxes for the crowd, which so far is just two mothers and a journalist.
Eventually, there was a critical mass of parents, around 50, and almost all of them popped questions at Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote and Assistant Super David El Fattal.
Putting programs aside for the moment, people working for the School District are going to be wounded by the scythe that executes budget cuts.
Close to the Bone
Alan Elmont, a member of the citizens’ Community Budget Advisory Committee that prepared the menu of cuttable people and programs for the School Board to ponder, made a keen observation in these pages last week.
He said the School District already is running on lean, implying that it hardly can afford any trimming without doing damage.
Several District employees — with both higher and lower visibility — made eloquent, dignified pleas for their jobs at the Zeidman meeting.
My Turn to Moo
Everyone has a sacred cow, and here is the one I pray to.
My recollection is that each time the notion of budget cuts has been introduced in this century, some form of public relations is the first to be volunteered for the chopping block.
Dumb, uninformed decision.
The District desperately needs a constant boost in communications with the community.
The citizens committee has recommended eliminating the District’s website, which sounds like an idea cooked up by people who are intimidated by computers or others who never get out of doors.
The School Board is scheduled to start voting at Tuesday night’s 7 o’clock meeting at School District headquarters on Irving Place.
