A Reward for Volunteers

Ari L. NoonanA&E

     In lieu of thousands of dollars in unanticipated compensation, the Friends of the Library will serve a large pizza lunch on Saturday to the scores of volunteers who have helped to make the Julian Dixon Library a heavily patronized community resource.
     At the end of National Volunteer Week, the friends will serve pizza from Jay Handal’s San Gennaro Café, between 12:30 and 2:30, at the library.
     Friends President Sharon Zeitlin said memberships in Friends will be available at the door for a group where annual dues range between $5 and $20.
     Friends can be reached at www.ccfol.org. The library is at  4975 Overland Ave., Culver City.
310.559.1676.

Silbiger, Vera: They Are Quite Different

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

   If the sagacious lady and gentlemen of the City Council vote their colleague Gary Silbiger into the mayor’s chair, as expected, on Monday night, his one-year term will stand in sharp contrast to the just-ending tenure of the salty-tongued Albert Vera.
       Mr. Vera, at the brink of retirement, alternates between Mr. Excitement and Mr. Excitable. Seldom has Mr. Silbiger displayed flashes of either excitability or excitement.
   Most noticeably, the weekly heat in Council Chambers will decline by twenty degrees when Culver City changes mayors.
   Look no further than this week’s meeting for the latest brick in a tall wall of proof that Mr. Silbiger’s flexible professional personality runs to the softer, crushed velvet side.

Psst, What About Culver City?

Ari L. NoonanSports

   On the other hand, if I could interrupt the naked power grab by Mayor I.M. Wrong of Los Angeles and convince him to shift his attention from Los  Angeles schools to a takeover of  Culver City schools, we could at least dicker.
   There is an opening.
   A role for Mayor Wrong, demagogue-in-training, has been on my mind ever since Dist. Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey announced her retirement a fortnight ago.

   I would have commented sooner. But I have been busy, in service to the School District,  driving my shoulder into the door of Dr. McGaughey’s office.

When Bosses Take the Day Off

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

   When one half of the glitzy crowd was thanking the rest of the glitzy crowd last week on the second floor of the Fox Hills Mall for launching a promising-sounding job-enablement program, a modest man sat hidden away in the back of the room.
   Nine events were listed on an elaborate agenda emc’d by Sam  Andes, the General Manager of the Mall.
None of the listings carried the name of the modest man.
Space and time, instead, were engraved for flouncier people, political celebrities. But some of the flouncier people were too busy flouncing elsewhere in Southern California that morning.

It’s an old story.

Vera 1, Everybody Else 0

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

   Fourteen years and three terms after coming to City Hall, the wily Mayor Albert Vera was outfoxing his critics down to his final meaningful day in office.
   His orchestrated Closing Act as Mayor was a doozy, a dollop of garlic-flavored Gotcha, a wink and a wave for any colleague who might have foolishly thought he had figured out how Mr. Vera ticked.
   Instead, in his wake, one last time, Mr. Vera left some ticked-off cohorts while he was  galloping, smilingly, into the sunset of reluctant retirement.
      Cue up the organ music, Maestro, for dramatic effect.

They Will Call Him Chief

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

   Before the members of the City Council donned their boxing gloves on Monday night, they bid welcome to Don Pedersen, the new Chief of Police.
   Before uttering a word, he presented exactly the image that Culver City has yearned for in its leaders:
   Family man.
   With his wife Carol, his two daughters who are twelve and nine, and his sister in tow, Mr. Pedersen and his family calmed the waters that had been roiled since last month when he was chosen over the local favorite, Hank Davies.

Council Shuns Goodbye Kisses

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

   As oldtimers used to say over the cracker barrel down at the General Store about the Garden of Eden, temptation was too juicy to be resisted.
   Which reminds everybody in Culver City of the feudin’ and fightin’ by the City Council.
   No one blew kisses at their farewell full meeting on Monday night.
   Rather, they almost looked as if they wanted to blow each other away.
   When the new Chief of Police, Don Pedersen, surprisingly was being sworn in — without prior announcement — at the City Council meeting, for one blurry moment,it looked as if a potentially volatile evening might go smoothly after all.

Mom and the N A A C P

Ari L. NoonanSports

   The NAACP probably knew what it was doing when Dr. Geraldine Washington, an educator, was made the Los Angeles face of the venerable group.
   Even though she is undoubtedly younger than I, President Washington’s  appearance is pleasingly matronly. She looks either like everybody’s mother or the way you would like Mom to look.
   In sports, you may want to present a fearsome appearance to make your opponents quiver like year-old grape preserves.
   But in the fiercely competitive world of cultural marketing, Mama is the ticket if you want to make friends and believers fast with other kinds of people.

Will Chief Vote Remain Soundproof?

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

     While the new Police Chief-in-waiting Don Pedersen was visiting a doctor on Friday morning to fulfill his medical exam requirement, the City Council was talking about him. 
     They will be talking about him even more at the outset of the City Council meeting on Monday night, and it may get messy. 
     Worded intriguingly vaguely on the Council Agenda, a “presentation” of Mr. Pedersen is listed as the first order of business. 
     What is a presentation? At the weekend, a precise explanation was not available.

Art of Self-Perpetuation

Ari L. NoonanSports

    Once established, do-gooder organizations are like new taxes — they are in your life for all time. They promise to go away when the need dries up. 
    The trouble is, only they can judge when the need dries up. Too many easy, profitable livelihoods are at stake. They ain’t going away, pal, as long as you and I are alive to support them. 
     Back in the 1980s, I wrote tens of thousands of words about various Committees to Rescue Soviet Jews, a group the overweight windbag Zev Yaroslavsky of the County Board of Supervisors used as a springboard to a career on the dole. Eventually, Soviet Jews were rescued. Made no difference. The people at the top did not go away.