It would be less prickly to embrace Mr. Vera as the self-ordained Icon of Culver City if, as my spies tell me, he weren’t seen tiptoeing through a park late one night every week, opening a fresh container of 99-Cent Store Idol Polish, and shining up his favorite self sculpture.

Once again this election season, Mr. Vera, still dreaming of office in his mid-70s, has told a journalist that he will be a candidate for the City Council.

Once again, we are feeling let down.

Now Where Is He?

Once again this winter, Mr. Vera has avoided the City Clerk’s registration desk as if it contained the germs of a monster-sized beast from outer space.

Once again Mr. Vera’s cadre of unshakeable loyalists sets off still another buzz around town about their favorite mirage politician.
Tongues of the true believers are clucking non-stop, just as the “candidate” planned.

In their finest stage-whispers, they guilelessly wail. “Isn’t it wonderful that Albert is running again? After all he has done for us already.”

The most successful self-promoter in the modern annals of Culver City has sold himself to us one more once. Gullible birds that we are, we opened wide and swallowed whole without pause. Silly us.

Although we were gainfully employed in our earlier years as a semi-professional mind-reader, those skills have ebbed in the intervening years. They have descended into the same fiery pit of coals where the record of Mr. Vera’s Councilmanic achievements is maintained deep inside the asbestos files.

In the absence of a written record, when old City Hall chums of The Perennial Candidate were polled for recollections of Mr. Vera’s accomplishments, they tended to break into a record sprint, away from their curious interrogator.

Since Mr. Vera failed to keep his repeated promises of taking out the necessary papers two years ago for a repeat Council run, we presume this winter he had a two-fer in mind.

Shh, All Quiet in the Clerk’s Office

Midway through the third and next-to-last week for registration, the City Clerk’s office is devoid of new candidates. No one has signed up since Mehaul O’Leary became the No. 5 candidate on Thursday, Dec. 20. Given Mr. Vera’s latest arm’s-length dance with Queen Candor, you can bet the family fortune if anyone else completes the registration procedure between this afternoon and a week from Friday, his name will not be Vera.

Give the old boy credit. He puts the candidate bait out there, and we snap at it like pink-cheeked guppies.

Therefore, why not accept a juicier challenge, Mr. Vera? Contest state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) and former Police Chief Bernard Parks for the to-be-vacated seat of supposedly retiring County Supervisor Yvonne Aflac Brathwaite Burke, whom Mr. Vera characterizes as the First Lady of Los Angeles politics.

Millions for the Poor ‘Uns

Each of the five Supervisors has personal access to a $3 million budget at the start of every fiscal year. Imagine how Mr. Vera could improve — rehabilitate? — his image by spreading those millions around Culver City. Now that would be a political legacy, supplanting the present invisible one.

Then Mr. Vera, wildly proud of his homegrown Italian heritage, could be the only contender not running as a black man.

As fellow Slipperyites, the three of them should be comfortable in each other’s slippery company. Each one of these guys is so slick, he could skate across a floor slathered end to end with honey and molasses.

The slipperiest of all, however, may be Ms. Aflac Brathwaite Burke, whose most enviable talent seems to be ducking straight-up questions.

What Do You Mean by ‘Straight’?

Politicians, as you know, commonly are unable to stand up straight, to speak with an unforked tongue or to answer a question without shading certain key words by pulling fluffy clouds over them.

Is the 74-year-old Ms. Aflac Brathwaite Burke really retiring this year? Most people presume so, but none will say flatly. The most recent stories on Ms. A.B.B. include the caveat “expected” to leave office.

What if she decided to stay on, which would be tantamount to re-election? Wouldn’t that serve her fellow Slickers right?