[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]As a student of history, I probably should feel extraordinarily fortunate this afternoon.
Surely I am one of the few living journalists who has witnessed a City Council preparing to overturn an ordinance that is working because 3 people — not 3 million, but 3 — testified that the ordinance, a parking ban on RVs, was a pain in the neck for them.
All 3 men — conducting themselves with impressive modesty, as barely deserving petitioners — seemed like the kind of strangers you would invite to your next garden party. They never would be suspected of beating their wives or starving their children.
If I put the arm on two of my cousins next Monday night, I will wager the City Council will kill the signal light at the intersection of Braddock Drive and Overland because occasionally it is inconvenient.
You may have to travel to Pakistan to find a more pliable, collegial city commission than the 5 gentlemen who sit on the dais in City Hall. Ask, and you very quickly shall receive.
Step right up, pal. No favor is too small — just ask those 3 RV owners from last week.
What law would you like reversed, pal? Email me. We shall erase it at the next meeting.
Disney Is in Trouble?
At this rate, by Sunday Culver City will have replaced Disneyland as the Hub of Happiness.
This past Monday night, the mood in Council Chambers sharply changed.
Gone were the trinity of humble RV owners.
In their places were 13 fairly red faces, emotionally echoing the 7-year-old pleading of Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger that, by golly, City Hall’s public notification process is embarrassingly inefficient. Otherwise, we would have to be scalping tickets for this extravaganza.
After all, 4 weeks of barnstorming, trumpet-tooting, envelope-pushing, vaguely imaginative promotion had fallen flat on its embarrassed nose.
When they opened the doors for the meeting, only the old crowd showed up. Not one new face. City Hall advertised everywhere except in the Orlando Sentinel that last Monday was going to be a rootin’, tootin’ and possibly historic night.
A Modern Revolutionary War
The revolt is coming, the revolt is coming, screamed paper and electronic messages around Culver City.
After years of being oppressed like rotten, dirty,discount slaves, by George, by Murgatroyd, by golly, we were going to talk about the inefficient public notification process. We will dig ardently until we find out where the missing 39,990 residents of Culver City have been hiding for the last 92 years.
Still, the same tiny crowd shows up for each Monday’s City Council meeting. Maybe there’s a secret hostage-taking that happens at 7 every Monday.
Vice Mayor Silbiger believes, darkly, that perhaps a kind of conspiracy, is keeping these smart people home every week.
It could not possibly be that these smart people don’t want to witness a tired, old Gasbag Convention.
Certain gasbags on the City Council take 15 painful minutes on each agenda item to declaim, slowly, why their side is brilliant, why the other side is monopolized by idiots and then, speaking even more slowly, say “I have a few points I would like to bring up,” repeat even more slowly, as if they fear somebody will be awake when they get home, and finally summarize the assertions even more slowly as the snoring gets a little louder.
There is only one orator among the 5 Councilman, and he is not even related to a gasbag.
How About a Bike Built for Two?
I have a picture of the Vice Mayor guiding his bicycle through the streets of Culver City late every Monday afternoon.
His mission: To pick up every reluctant meeting attendee, one at a time.
The only stipulation is that the semi-kidnapped unlucky bloke has to sit on the handle bars until they get back to City Hall where the Vice Mayor will screech on the brakes, gently deposit the unfortunate wretch, and then U-turn back into the neighborhoods that are harboring more cowering citizens.
Tomorrow: A visit with former Mayor Ed Wolkowitz
