4. With 35 days remaining in a regulations-compliance deadline established by the City Council, will the 45-student Star Prep Academy meet it or at least be allowed to complete the school year?
5. Will the Culver City police officers who filed corruption charges against their own department, in the form of a grand jury complaint, in November gain a hearing or have their pleas dismissed?
6. Will Police Chief Don Pedersen, nearing his 8-month anniversary, succeed in his attempt to reform the Culver City department? He is the quietest chief since someone before Ted Cooke.
7. Will the new Superintendent of the School District, Myrna Rivera Cote, who takes office on Tuesday, turn out to be more like Laura McGaughey, her retired predecessor, or the Interim Supt. Diane Fiello?
8. With Mara Wolkowitz starting her one-year term as president of the School Board, will she be more caretaker or activist executive?
9. Next December at this time, will parents be asking who the Super is or who is president of the School Board?
10. Will City Manager Jerry Fulwood choose Todd Tipton, Administrator of the Community Development Dept., to replace the retired Susan Evans as the face of redevelopment in Culver City? Mr. Tipton has important support at City Hall. But will this influence Mr. Fulwood?
11. Will the Skateboard Park, approved nearly a year ago, finally be built inside Culver City Park? The most passionate supporters have been frustrated by a series of delays. Park plans are scheduled to go to bid in the second half of January.
12. Were/are term limits a good idea for Culver City’s few elected officials? Three longtime voices on the City Council, Steve Rose, Carol Gross and Alan Corlin, are starting their final full year on the Council. They will be term-limited out in April of ’08.
13. Will the two star-crossed mobile home parks on Grandview slog through another year without having their welfare jeopardized by a change in property ownerships?
14. Now a veteran after 8 months, will Scott Malsin continue to be the most intriguing, watchable, unpreditcable member of the City Council?
15. Will this be a pivotal year for developer Bob Champion’s incredibly ambitious — increasingly unpopular — South Sepulveda Boulevard project? Two channels bear watching. Will the residents and business owners vehemently opposed to the teardown plan coalesce into an effective rival of Mr. Champion or sag into a scattershot crowd? Will a take-charge leader or two emerge? Here is the other prospect to track: A city official said this morning that the first big task Mr. Champion has set for himself — buying out the more than 100 business owners — “is too monumental for me to ponder.” Is Mr. Champion equal to such a staggering under taking? It is not as if business owners, according to their present mood, are willing to go down quietly.
16. Why can’t Tom Camarella be re-elected president of the Culver City Democratic Club for one more year at the Jan. 10 meeting? Between Mr. Camarella and his wife Ronnie Jayne, also a club officer, every meeting was like a fun outing to Disneyland. They brought large doses of two concepts seldom seen in tandem — meeting-night energy and laser focus. Mr. Camarella, unfortunately, is not running. Greg Valtierra, equally a good man, is in line to be elected president.
17. Are the smart people in town betting one more year will slip away without detectable progress on the Washington-Centinela project?
18. Will Jeffers M. Dodge, who lost last month’s state Assembly race to incumbent Karen Bass because he is a Republican, be motivated to try and gain traction in his fight to break through a Democratic wall? The worst part of campaigning, say many failed and winning candidates, is doing the scutwork during the dreary days when neither media nor voters pay attention.
19. Does any Culver City figure of note face a bleaker prospect at the outset of the year than police Lt. Harvey Bailey? With the unsolved homicide death of his wife looming in the background, Mr. Bailey returns to court in mid-January on a felony charge of possession of two assault weapons.
20. Will once and (probably) future City Council candidate Mehaul O’Leary make himself visible enough throughout the year to assure a strong run for one of three open seats in ’08?