Culver City voters were reminded again last evening at the Vintage Faith Foursquare Church in the shadow of Tellefson Park that the dividing lines in the sprawling field of City Council candidates are progressives vs. moderates, experience vs. new faces.
Göran Eriksson, Marcus Tiggs and Scott Wyant, the moderates, underpinned by years’ more experience inside City Hall, are favored to win two of the three open Council seats on April 12.
On the progressive side, Councilperson Meghan Sahli Wells not only is expected to retain her seat, she could bring along one or two of her progressive teammates, Thomas Small and Daniel Lee, without triggering an earthquake. Both gentlemen calmly, knowledgeably, with ringing articulation, have delivered meaty, informed performances in the first two candidate forums, smartly elevating their community profiles. More than the other wing of candidates, they frequently returned to a sustainability theme.
This leaves wild card Jay Garocochea, whose status will be addressed later.
Unlike past Council candidate fields, there is not a weak link.
Unlike previous fields, none sounds as if he just dashed in from the gym and was caught unaware by a question.
To a stranger passing through the Tellefson Park neighborhood last evening, Messrs. Eriksson, Wyant and Tiggs could have been mistaken for Council member. So rounded, deep and exquisitely detailed were their responses to moderator John Cohn’s razored questions that the men they seek to succeed might have blushed had they been in the sizable audience.
While styles and foibles of statewide and national politicians often are headline material, hometown politics is a much more fundamental test of skills.
“What did he say?” always trumps “what was he wearing?” or “what was his inflection when he said…?”
Take the random question, what will you do to address the infrastructure problems of broken sidewalks and potholes?
Mr. Lee’s response was typical of the evening’s thoughtful, thorough answers:
“One of the initial things I thought when I saw this question went back to the sustainability plan (that stalled at Monday evening’s Council meeting). In that plan, which the City Council has sort of addressed in a piecemeal way, we would focus on areas that have native foliage, foliage that is destructive or not destructive to sidewalks and to streets. I would try to remedy it by pulling up our existing trees and disruptive horticulture and replacing it with more sustainable types of fauna we would not have to replace again in 20 years. If we had a plan that looked forward and did not just react once we had a problem, we could address these issues before they come up.”
In this election, for a change, the dilemma is the voters’, not the candidates’.