Given Jim Clarke’s reputation eclecticism as a City Councilman, what is the most interesting time of year for him?

Like athletes and students, they have seasons, don’t they?

The question was asked with the presumption that the answer was not the just-completed budget items, although digging into arcane as well as prominent areas of departmental work plans intrigue him.

“The most interesting time of year is coming up,” Mr. Clarke said.

“I have been talking with the mayor and the city manager about this – the idea of having some kind of strategic planning retreat.”

In a bow to behind-the-scenes people, “(city) staff does a great job of identifying problems and having those things be reflected in the work plan, the budget and what they are doing.”

According to the second-term Councilman, here is the airborne insect inside the ointment container:

“Staff does this, though, without any sense of ‘what is the game plan?’ Or ‘what is our long-term goal?’”

Mr. Clarke served up an illustration:

“Let’s just say we are going to make Culver City one of the greenest, most sustainable cities in L.A. County,” he suggested.

“What does that mean? What does that mean to the Police Dept.? What does that mean to the Fire Dept.? What does it mean to Transportation? And how does that get reflected?

“Or as Meghan (Sahli-Wells) said when she was mayor, ‘I want Culver City to be a safe place for kids to grow up in.’

“How,” Mr. Clarke wants to know, “does that kind of vision get reflected in the priorities of what we do in the city?”

(to be continued)