A classic showdown that pitted several enraged property owners against the perceived might of City Hall on Monday night at the Redevelopment Agency meeting, deteriorated so alarmingly fast that two uniformed officers were summoned from the Police Dept. Emotions ballooned at the speed of a fat man gulping hot dogs in an ice storm. Decorum kept getting slapped in the face. Property owners, clearly out of order for a community meeting, protested noisily from their seats toward the rear of Council Chambers to Agency members on the dais. Civility appeared to be shaken if not under immediate threat. Responding to an urgent call from a concerned Martin Cole, the Dep. Chief Administrative Officer, late in the meeting, the police officers stood as sentinels against the rear wall of Council Chambers on a just-in-case basis. The officers’ presence, however, scarcely cooled off the two main tee-shirted combatants. Gesturing lavishly, they continued to rail bitterly against Agency members over what they regarded as “an unfair takeover” of their properties. They cast their resistance in intensely personalized words and descriptions. “I might as well go live in Russia,” roared an infuriated Patrick Vorgeack, the owner of property at 8829 Exposition Blvd.

Parents who are concerned about the foods their children purchase at school are invited to an open meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 in the Faculty Lounge of the Middle School/Culver City High School. A so-called Wellness Policy has been drafted, and one purpose of the community meeting will be to revise and refine the direction the public wants School District officials to take. Community members also may participate by emailing Ron Hacker, the Director of Food Services, at ccusd.org. At least some members of the School Board would like to vote on the Wellness Policy at next week’s meeting, Tuesday, June 27. That is when the second reading is scheduled. “We can always revise the policy afterward if it is necessary to update it in order to reflect reality,” a School District official told thefrontpageonline.com.

One week after the School Board authorized salary increases to 52 non-teachers and set off howls by members of the Teachers Union, a graph used as a guideline shows a sizable disparity in pay between Culver City and rival districts. A survey of surrounding school districts and their salary schedules for the past school year — not the present one — seems to suggest that Culver City may have been tardy in granting pay raises. The majority of Culver City positions identified in the survey are near the bottom among districts that were reviewed. The School District’s main administrators take a seat in the rear of the room when pay scales are compared. In the review of school districts of comparable size, as the frontpageonline.com reported earlier, the salary scheduled of District Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey ranks ninth among nine districts in the survey. Including the roughly 25 percent pay increase she received at last week’s School Board meeting, she would jump from ninth to sixth place on the list, pending raises in other school districts. In 15 of the 25 categories, Culver City finished in the bottom three.

Three passionate leaders of a sharply focused statewide campaign to establish universal health care in California visited the Culver City Democratic Club on Wednesday night to sign up volunteers. Bouncing off of the enthusiasm of Club President Tom Camarella, the entire room at the Vets Auditorium sounded ready to enlist. Senate Bill 840, called, somewhat diplomatically, the California Health Insurance Act, is the latest attempt by the hard-charging Sen.
Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica)to modernize the social/cultural landscape of the state. Earlier versions of universal health care bills have faced daunting, straight-uphill challenges, especially from massive corporate resistance. The three presenters sought to convince their audience that this time they were better organized than ever before. Robin Podolsky, an aide to Sen. Kuehl, George Savage, the Los Angeles director of Health Care for All Americans, and Joe Newlin, an organizer for the California Nurses Assn., scarcely admitted to any downsides in their elaborate strategy.

•See Artists Find Unique Venue in the Valley at the end of the following report

The chairman of the Charter Review Committee today contradicted claims made yesterday by a Committee colleague regarding the job status of Culver City’s chief executive, Jerry Fulwood. “It never was the intention of the Committee to suggest that a search for a successor to Mr. Fulwood should be conducted,” Andy Weissman told thefrontpageonline.com. “All we were doing was changing Mr. Fulwood’s title from Chief Administrative Officer to City Manager.”

As a member of the Committee, Tom Camarella said that it was his understanding that if voters approved the change in forms of government in last April’s city election, that would automatically trigger a national search for a City Manager to supplant Mr. Fulwood. The voters, Mr. Camarella said, would have expressed their will. Nothing of the sort was implied in any Committee meeting, Mr. Weissman countered. “We never concerned ourselves with who would fill the (chief executive’s) position,” he said. “That was not a part of our charge. During the existence of the Charter Review Committee, nothing ever was discussed about Mr. Fulwood’s job status.” When the revisions to the City Charter by the 10-member Review Committee were announced last year, Mr. Weissman routinely remarked that all changes were unanimously agreed upon. Until Mr. Camarella’s statement this week, the assertion never had been challenged. Mr. Camarella said that he was not alone in his convictions about the necessity of organizing a search for a new person to fill the newly created title. “In polling the former Charter Committee members” he said,“the majority were very displeased that a nationwide search was not performed.” Mr. Weissman shook his head over that statement, and he issued a chilly denial: “Nothing ever was discussed by the Committee about the opinions that (Mr. Camarella) says were based on the poll that he purports to have conducted.”

Wittier than any police chief in America and irresistibly charming in a room full of adoring women, Ted Cooke, flirting with his 75th birthday, was a two-tiered smash on the lecture circuit Wednesday afternoon. Deftly alternating blue-darter observations with crackingly funny lines that would have made Johnny Carson envious — then and now — the retired Culver City Police Chief proved that he has found the leisurely life to be seductively agreeable. Neither his always-nimble mind nor his sometimes-acerbic tongue has lost a step since Mr. Cooke cautiously tiptoed into retirement two and a half years ago.

As far as the Santa Monica Republican Women’s Federated club was concerned, the dapper Mr. Cooke was at the crest of his game. He seldom goes anywhere without his bulging satchel full of crime statistics, which he shlepped to the speakers’ rostrum. But he has been reciting the devastating data for so many years that it is as familiar as his shirt size. Natural to the core, he scarcely referred to his prep sheet. Acting as if he had just stepped into the living room of one of the Republican ladies, the dark-suited chief was the ideal guest for the patriot-minded club on Flag Day.  You could start with the apple red hanky peeking over the top of his breast pocket. Attired, as usual, in his favorite suit, white shirt and smart but not too noticeable necktie, he planted his left hand in a pant pocket, leaving his main arm free to write out all gesticulations.