One month in, this is not your father’s City Council hanging out at City Hall.

Nor is it the City Council of Mehaul O’Leary, immediate past mayor.

This is imaginative, experimental Jim Clarke’s Council for two reasons – he has been elected mayor by his colleagues and he owns a mature mind that constantly is roaming, exploring, probing about for new ways to perform old duties.

Looking for parallels?

Just as Barack Obama today became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, Mr. Clarke became the first sitting Culver City mayor to visit Lethbridge, Canada, one of the community’s four Sister Cities. There is a significant distinction in the two cases – reliable evidence suggests that Culver City never has bombed Lethbridge.

It was Mr. Clarke who drove the idea of a year-long centennial celebration, which will start in September.

He is an idea person who is equally comfortable doing the unglamorous tasks out of view.

(To be continued)