What has happened to the mayor?

Is the philosophy on which she built her successful career in jeopardy?

I am not sure why the mayor is trying so industriously to …

• Avoid looking as if she is favors tenants in the present debate over rent control, and
• Avoid pronouncing the phrase and supporting the concept that must have lately become an obscenity, “rent control.”

Long before being elected to the City Council, Meghan Sahli-Wells, bicyclist extraordinaire,  was an authentic, undoubted blue-ribbon populist.

She was a model woman of the people, a champion of most or all peoples’ causes – air, water, plastic bags, a wagonload of populist causes …until the Monday Council meeting.

She championed everyday people, not elitists.

Ms. Sahli-Wells did not sound like that Monday.

She spoke of rent control as if she were holding up a candy bar and talking about a golden apple.

If the Council genuinely is seeking meaningful “protections” for tenants, wouldn’t that be controlling rents?

Ms. Sahli-Wells glowed at the mention of renters’ rivals, the parties who made rent control a necessity 40 years ago. Typical was this observation: “Apparently we (in Culver City) have a group of wonderful, responsive and responsible property owners. I wish 100 percent of all property owners were like that.”

Ms. Sahli-Wells paused before criticizing the class of people she traditionally has allied herself with, the underdogs, the ordinaries. “I wish all renters were responsible and paid on time and didn’t make messes.

Searching for Relief

“Without going to 1970s-era rent control, there have to be some solutions we can come to, together, as a community thoughtfully, without the ranting, the raving.”

After saying that “personally, classic rent control is off the table for me, and it sounds like for my colleagues, too. But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ways of phasing in increases so they are done in more predictable ways for the renter and for owners. But it needs analysis. It needs legal analysis.”

Isn’t that rent control?

She talked for long minutes about community meetings and variations on get-togethers, which hardly amount to a remedy.

Years ago, I recall a similar conversation with former Councilman Gary Silbiger – let’s go to the people and see what they want.

No. You, Mr. Elected Official, were chosen for your ability to produce solutions.

Ms. Sahli-Wells said inspecifically that the community is in an affordability crisis. Who? What?

Does the buck stop on the dais? Or is it spread in a thin, transparent layer all over Council Chambers?