Second in a series

Re “What Clarke and Obama Have in Common”

During the next 11 months, Jim Clarke seems likely to establish an elevated threshold as the most innovative new mayor in Culver City’s history.

In addition to his just-completed mission to Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, a Sister City of Culver City, Mr. Clarke will introduce his next innovation at Tuesday evening’s holiday-delayed 7 o’clock City Council meeting.

With between three and four dozen residents having formally declared interest in appointment to the city’s numerous advisory commissions, Mayor Clarke is tweaking the normally dull process.

As perhaps the most driven, most passionate, most involved member of the City Council, he has a habit of probing for soft spots, seeking imaginative, attention-attracting ways to draw eyes that routinely ignore City Hall projects.

Except for immediate relatives – and not all of them – no one, including bill collectors, pays heed when normally involved – or hopelessly bored – residents volunteer for commission appointments.

No one takes notes when the volunteer strides to the microphone and modestly relates his qualifications.

Mayor Clarke’s twist on this tradition is to bring together all of the 40 or 50 volunteers in a single setting tomorrow evening.

Ideally, the Council members will revealingly question them.

It is not clear whether this method will yield information more useful than the old way.

But already it has focused more than sleepy-eyed notice on the process – and that was Mayor Clarke’s motivation all along.

(To be continued)