Ah, the sweet irony of Stew Bubar’s latest qualitative contribution to the public discourse. The irony was sizzling when Mr. Bubar, one of the most provocative members of the School Board in Culver City, sat down to craft a well-constructed essay for last week’s edition of the Culver City Star. Speaking authoritatively as a longtime teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Mr. Bubar presented cast-iron arguments why the thuggish Mayor Wrong of Los Angeles should not be allowed to seize control of the LAUSD in his panting march toward ultimate power in the United States. I trust that Mr. Bubar, as a loyal Teachers Union member, has seen the same information that I have — that Mayor Wrong is a better bet to succeed in his coarse course toward becoming czar of LAUSD than October is to directly follow September this year. Natural opponents of Mayor Wrong’s naked grab are collapsing the way athletes do when the fix is in. Last Thursday, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, sensing the train was going to leave with the Chamber underneath it, hollered “me, too,” and desperately lurched for the greasy coat-tails of Mayor Wrong. But I digress.
Was Vera Cast in Role of the Vice Mayor or of a Father?
A lawyer for Police Officer Heidi Keyantash says that her client’s multi-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against former Mayor Albert Vera and the city of Culver City probably will go to trial on March 5 rather than end with the fizzing sound of a settlement. “If the last mediation session is an indication,” Marla Brown told thefrontpageonline.com, “the likelihood is we will go to trial.” One of numerous unanswered questions is whether City Hall and the charismatic Mr. Vera are co-equal defendants in the suit? Another puzzler is, if Mr. Vera or the city settles with Ms. Keyantash over an alleged incident that happened more than two years ago, what becomes of the remaining party? “Interesting question,” parried Ms. Brown. “It is interesting because some of the most recent discovery responses we have received from Mr. Vera seem to suggest — like prior articles we have read — that some of the Police Dept. actions and some of Ms. Keyantash’s actions were politically motivated. He was supporting (John) Montanio for Police Chief, she was supporting the Police Union candidate (Asst. Chief Hank Davies), and therefore (according to Mr. Vera), the police were harassing his son,” Albert Vera Jr., evidently in a get-even gesture.
In Defense of the Harassed Surfas
A Powerful Contrary Opinion
Every day for more than a week, thefrontpageonline.com has carried hard-hitting stories on City Hall’s bitterly contested seizure of commercial properties belonging to Les Surfas, the harassed owner of Surfas Restaurant Supply, a 69-year-old Culver City business. Like a 105-year-old man suffering from cancer, polio, pneumonia and poison ivy, there are many painful parts to this story. This is the single most important issue in our community today — a classic confrontation, the muscle of government and redevelopment law vs. a lone business owner. Comes now a strongly held contrary view from one of the most powerful voices inside City Hall, Steve Rose, the Chair of the Redevelopment Agency.
Surfas Tells Why He Is Fighting City Hall
[Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a interview with longtime businessman Les Surfas. He contends that City Hall is driving him out of town by forcibly obtaining four of his buildings in the spirit of redevelopment. For the 59-year-old Mr. Surfas, a key issue in the city’s takeover is the apparently unavoidable loss of his warehouse and its proximity to the main building of Surfas Restaurant Supply and Gourmet Dining, founded 69 years ago.]
Q. You have rejected the city’s “final” offer of $4.89 million for the properties under four of your buildings. Is there any amount of money you would find satisfactory?
A. This is not about money. This is about right and wrong, the little guy against the city. It is my understanding it is almost impossible to win an eminent domain case. Where eminent domain is wrong is this: I believe the forefathers thought of taking (private property) for the true public good, such as a right-of-way, a freeway, a school, a library, expansion of rapid transit. That would be for the general good. This is where it went sideways, and our Supreme Court backed it up: Well, if it just brings in more revenue, that is for the general good. Or, if you are knocking down a nice house so that someone else can build a bigger, more expensive house. I don’t see how that is right.
New Police Union President Criticizes City Strategy
Tanned and rested after a 19-month titular sabbatical unexpectedly ended last month, Officer Jim Raetz returns to the presidency of the Police Officers Assn. just in time to help his union negotiate negotiate an overdue contract settlement. Fourteen months after the last agreement expired, Mr. Raetz says it is not crisis time — yet. He is optimistic accord will be achieved within the next weeks. But that does not mean the year-plus stalemate is not annoying. The 18-year veteran, who replaced Frank LaFlame as president in mid-term when Mr. LaFlame was medically retired, criticized City Hall’s newly adopted policy of negotiating simultaneously with all six city unions. Each union has needs unique to its members and conditions, Mr. Raetz contends. City Hall’s one-size-fits-all approach diminishes those separate needs, he says. The result is that five of the six unions still are without a contract, and tempers have reached the touchy stage. Union leaders are looking at the city’s negotiating team as if it were a houseguest, with a package of unperfumed fish tucked under his arm, who has overstayed his welcome by six months.
Dems Urged to Migrate to Polls
In the immediate wake of the defeat of two established members of Congress this week — Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and U.S. Rep Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) — two attorneys told the Culver City Democratic Club last night that it is all the more important for Democrats to vote in November to restore a Democratic agenda. The lawyers, both immigration specialists, carried a message of urgency to the monthly meeting at the Vets Auditorium. Alvaro Huerta is from CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles, and Meredith Brown is a Progressive activist in private practice. A little short on specificity, Mr. Huerta and Ms. Brown, a friend of Mayor Gary Silbiger, said there is national bi-partisan agreement that the immigration system is broken, but the proposed remedies in Washington are barely lukewarm. Nevertheless, they agreed, Democrats should storm the polls in November, vote for Progressive candidates and try to overturn the current two-chamber Republican advantage in Congress. By restoring Democrats to leadership roles, they said, the multiple crises plaguing tens of millions of mainly Latino immigrants have a better chance of being resolved effectively.
Les Surfas Preparing to Wave Goodbye?
Dispirited and resigned to being forced out of his hometown by City Hall, Les Surfas, proprietor of a multi-building Culver City business that is 69 years old, slumped at his desk. It was late on Tuesday afternoon. Maybe this is his normal posture. Or perhaps the 59-year-old proprietor of the family-owned restaurant supply and gourmet enterprise was fatigued from a physically and emotionally leaky shift at the office the day after City Hall fired him. His heart had one hand on the door, ready to leave. He hates to be thrown out of Culver City. He does not want to go. This is his home, not a waystation. It will depart with a glowing image. “The Boston Globe says of us that ‘Surfas is perhaps the best and the most eclectic restaurant supply store in the country,’” he said.
Let Us Play War Games
By assuming the debatable posture of a dilettante on subjects as serious as world history, religion, war and conflicts between peoples, my worthy colleague Frederik Sisa lays bare a range of cerebral vulnerabilities that lead directly to embarrassing, not to mention erroneous, conclusions. His two most recent anti-war essays (“Here’s a Moral Judgment: War Is Evil,” Aug. 4 and Aug. 8) undeniably are the heavily fictionalized exercises of a theatrically trained theorist. History tells us that one who commits his creative hours to the performing arts learns to rely heavily on theory and fantasy in other dimensions of his life. It is an enormously feminized milieu, an alluring philosophy that denizens of the entertainment industry embrace, perhaps even more lovingly than their spouses. Living in a universe of fulltime make-believe, where everything is fixable and achievable, the highway back to reality becomes unappealing in the extreme. You become inured to papier-mache. Defects in life, they assume, can be corrected as swiftly and painlessly as a script is doctored. In their artful artifices, they suggest that America was founded by theorists and fantasy-makers, a concept that feels soft, cuddly, giggly.
The Night a Culver City Business Died
As he had promised over the weekend, Les Surfas, one of Culver City’s important business owners, went down with the valor of a Purple Heart warrior. But he went down, which is what galls him. What happened Monday night with the Redevelopment Agency in Council Chambers doubtless will gall Mr. Surfas for the rest of his life. In at least a truncated manner, he lost his business, or lost his ability to operate in Culver City, he suggested. He viewed the foregone Agency vote to seize his properties — for redevelopment or improvement purposes — as a death sentence for earning his livelihood in Culver City. In the tradition of a condemned man standing before a judge or jury, Mr. Surfas stood before his judge and jury, the Redevelopment Agency, and he pleaded with the members to choose an alternative path that he was suggesting. The option had less of a chance than a snowball in the world to come. It may have been impossible for him to summon more plaintive tones. "My wife, our son and I work six, seven days a week to keep the business going,” said the owner of Surfas Food Service Design, Equipment and Supply. The company was founded in 1937. The tombstone for the business will say, as far as Culver City is concerned, “Died in 2006,” Mr. Surfas indicated. He had no choice last night but to lose. Obviously, he did not want to. But all of the political and legal machinery of Culver City and, apparently, two centuries of American legal history and precedent, were arrayed against him.