The following is the complete text Of Mayor Andy Weissman’s speech at Culver City’s 30th Annual Mayor’s Luncheon. The Luncheon was held on Wednesday March 24th, 2010 at Veteran’s Auditorium.
Mayor Weissman:
Thank you all for coming.
Like many of you, I have attended many of these lunches over the years. In truth, and probably unlike you, this is the first Mayor’s lunch that I’ve actually paid attention to.
Each year, our annual Mayor's Lunch affords us an opportunity to look back on the past year, reflect on the current year and look forward to the upcoming year.
Let us remember together where we were last year about this time.
Our City Manager was retiring and we had just hired a new City Manager.
We were coping with a modest budget shortfall of about 3 million dollars. Westfield Culver City was still known as the Fox Hills Mall.
And of course, we still thought there was a possibility that some of the stalled development projects would be able to get financed and built.
And a year later?
Well, our City Manager is moving to Fresno, and we are looking to hire a new City Manager.
The economy continues to struggle
and the gap between revenues and expenses may be twice what it was last year.
Fox Hills Mall is no more and,
of course,
few, perhaps none, if you get real technical, of those stalled redevelopment projects have yet to be built.
Not a bad year, I’d say.
As for next year, well,
Good Luck, Chris Armenta.
In all seriousness, we have faced and continue to face tremendous challenges in Culver City.
We have been able to tackle the challenges because of the hard work, dedication and determination of our City family, management staff and employees.
We are all in this together, we depend upon each of you
to make Culver City the unique place it is.
I would ask all city employees to stand and be recognized.
Thank you.
It has been my pleasure to work with 4 special individuals, my colleagues on the Council.
No one,
Meghan and Jeff, pay close attention,
truly appreciates,
the amount of time,
the level of commitment,
the sacrifices of family, friends and work, which are made by members of the City Council.
A part time Council in name only;
being a council member is like having a full time job piled on top of your already full time job.
I am proud to work with my colleagues, proud of the things we’ve done and would ask you all to join with me in thanking them for their service.
And I want to give special recognition to our retiring Council member Gary Silbiger.
The Don Quixote of the Council, laboring week after week, night after night, committee meeting after committee meeting for 8 consecutive years, Gary has always been the Council’s uncompromising idealist.
I want to express my appreciation to you, Gary,
and thank you.
on behalf of Culver City for your dedication and commitment these past 8 years.
It has been my absolute pleasure to be able to serve as Mayor for the past 11 months.
In fact, once you get used to the fact that your presence is sought not for who you are, but rather for what you are,
one settles in to the responsibility fairly easily
and being the Mayor becomes more a matter of trying to manage one’s time, rather than one’s ego.
We have gone through plenty this past year, accomplished much, many noteworthy, some considerably less so.
Given the magnitude of the challenges that face Culver City,
this may not rise to the top of anyone else’s list,
but one of the things I am most proud of
is the renewed sense of civility and respect amongst the council and,
for the most part,
those who participate in council meetings as well.
I talked about it two years ago when I was running for City Council and have tried to practice it during my time on the Council.
I have always believed that being respectful to all points of view is essential to good government.
And I believe that being respectful is more than just being a good listener.
Being respectful also means having the creativity and patience to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with you,
without resorting to petty insults, name-calling and overheated and exaggerated rhetoric.
I apologize if this sounds like lecturing because I don’t mean it to,
but it is something I feel strongly about, so I wanted to mention it.
For me, it is distressing to see how hyper-partisan governing has become.
With all due respect to our state and federal representatives,
at least one of whom is here today,
we have become such an incredibly polarized system
that the impulse to try and reconcile divergent interests and points of view has virtually vanished
and dysfunction has become the order of the day.
I am pleased to observe that
while we may not be all the way there,
while we may slip a bit from time to time, while there is always room for improvement,
here in Culver City,
we are practicing the art of listening, discussing policy,
disagreeing, without hostility and without being disagreeable,
and working cooperatively toward a mutually beneficial result.
Not always,
not perfectly,
but, clearly it is the rule and not the exception.
Again, to my colleagues and to all of you out there who participate in this process,
Thank you.
We all know the financial challenges facing the City.
Meeting those challenges will require that we determine the best and most effective use of each dollar.
We will need to sort out which programs provide essential services or are most critical to Culver City's future and,
assuming we will not be able to continue to “do it all”,
then we will need the courage and determination to reduce or eliminate funding for those programs that are least critical to Culver City's future.
No program should be immune from that analysis.
Merely because a program or a service is a good thing,
shouldn’t mean that spending more money on it is always admirable
and spending less is always deplorable.
In the final analysis, we may no longer afford to retain programs or services simply because people have become accustomed.
But enough of the preachy stuff, let’s get to what everyone is really here for and that is to quickly review some of the things that happened this past year and exemplify why we do what we do in Culver City.
Thanks to the IT department for all their work to keep our communications running under particularly trying circumstances and for making the transition to our new communication system so smooth.
Our Finance Department is responsible for the billings and collections of revenues that keep us moving forward and we greatly appreciate their dedication and efficiency.
Likewise, our City Attorney’s office oversees our not inconsequential legal matters and does so, day in and day out with professionalism and considering they are lawyers, politely and with good grace.
Jeff Eastman retired as Fire Chief, but before he left, we dedicated our new fire station, #3 in Fox Hills.
Our Fire Department was
re-accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. Less than 150 out of more than 39,000 fire departments in North America have achieved that distinction.
It deployed firefighters to the
Santa Barbara Fire
Morris Fire
Palos Verdes Fire
Station Fire
Guiberson Fire
It responded to nearly 4,400 emergencies in the City.
And they still found the time and the energy to make pancakes at Fire Service Day the first Saturday in May.
The police department continues to provide an extraordinary level of service that makes for peaceful days and restful nights.
Sort of an astonishing statistic: CCPD was involved in nearly 45,000 incidents over the last 12 months.
Through its traffic efforts, we realized an 8% reduction in traffic accidents.
CCPD takes its quality of life responsibilities seriously, providing services through its Juvenile division for at risk youth,
partnering with the Maple Foundation, provides victim assistance
and proactively educating the public about the perils of drunk driving.
This past year, our transportation department earned the #1 ranking as North America’s Best Green Fleet out of 38,000 fleets and
was recognized as the 5th Best Fleet overall in North America, green, blue, tangerine or otherwise.
And implemented the bus rapid transit service along Sepulveda Boulevard.
Our Public Work Department does a tremendous job of managing the City’s infrastructure, but it is much more than just streets, trees, sidewalks and lights.
It is also instrumental in carrying out many of the environmental and sustainable initiatives of the City:
Implementing an organic waste recycling pilot program with Sony Pictures Entertainment, which has diverted approximately 80% of Sony’s compactor waste away from landfills.
It shepherded the process that resulted in an agreement between Culver City and the City and County of Los Angeles
to work together on regional traffic mitigation projects.
Working with Parks and Rec, it completed the City’s first outdoor lighting project using LED technology at Culver West Alexander Park.
It also coordinated efforts with community groups to remove debris from Ballona Creek and
It continued with the development of the City’s first ever Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan.
The activities of our Parks, Rec and Community Services Department demonstrates the diverse nature of our community and
the remarkable scope of programs and services that we provide to all segments of our community.
Activities such as
Snow Day.
Teen Center Programs and
After School Computer Lab Stations.
Providing supervision at the Skate Park.
Senior Nutrition Programs
Paratransit Programs
and Disability and Social Service programs.
A department that truly impacts the quality of life in Culver City.
In a time of tight budgets, we depend more and more on volunteers.
It is hardly surprising that volunteerism is alive and well in Culver City.
Volunteers in the Retired Senior Volunteer Program contributed more than 100,000 service hours to over 80 organizations in Culver City and West LA,
Seven Park Enhancement Program grant projects were completed, engaging volunteers of all ages from various organizations,
including the Fox Hills Neighborhood Association, Youth Making Changes, the Culver City High School Booster Club and students
in community beautification projects.
In collaboration with KaBOOM!, The Wasserman Foundation, various City Departments, community organizations and more than 200 volunteers,
a community-build playground was completed at Vet’s Park.
Our police reserves donated nearly 7000 hours of time, assisting at events such as the 4th of July, Fiesta La Ballona and the car show.
The Fiesta La Ballona and Martin Luther King Day Committees devoted who knows how many hours planning and implementing their events,
events which continue to get better and better each year.
The efforts of hundreds of volunteers, combined with the generosity of thousands of individuals and the business community, groups like the Rotary, Exchange and Lions Clubs, Friends of the Library, the Education Foundation, Youth Health Center, Friends of the Culver City dog Park
and so many more
continues to inspire.
Despite the lagging economy, Culver City has been anything but stagnant.
The Community Development Department,
helped to bring about Westfield Corporation's $180 million dollar renovation of Westfield Culver City,
which was completed this past October.
By all conventional measures, the public has taken to the renovated regional shopping center in a big way.
At the West End, through its commercial rehabilitation efforts,
revitalization continues for West Washington, with streetscape and façade improvements, new restaurants, like Pitfire Pizza and Waterloo and City,
while at the same time, striving to breathe life into the Baldwin and Washington Centinela projects.
On the east end, if there was a tunnel,
and if there was a train,
you could look way way down that tunnel and see the light of the light rail,
as it creeps ever closer to Culver City.
Of course, we don’t have either, so you’ll have to take our word for it, but
it is now only a matter of when, no longer a matter of if, Expo will finally get here;
its arrival being critically important to our transit oriented development plans on 3 of the 4 corners of Washington National.
We had another extraordinary Summer Concert Season and just concluded our Friday night winter Concerts in the Council Chambers.
The economic engine that is Sony Pictures Entertainment continues to be a major force in film and in our community.
Brotman Hospital is under revitalized ownership.
Restaurant openings, in recent years, seemingly the exclusive domain of downtown, have been taking place across Culver City.
And we are pleased to welcome Upward Bound House and its emergency family homeless shelter to Culver City.
These are but some of the signs of the
inherent strength and vitality of Culver City.
I could go on, and on,
but in the interest of driver safety and avoiding stupefying you any further, I will stop. Well, almost.
I want to thank my wife Doneil for providing me with the support that has enabled me to spend as much time as I do for Culver City.
Whether as a commissioner, member of the Culver City Rotary Club, board member of the Culver Palms Family YMCA, former Chair of the Chamber of Commerce, Fiesta La Ballona, and the Downtown Business Association and most recently as a member of the City Council, you know I pretty much live and breathe Culver City.
I am grateful to all of you for the opportunity to be of service and
I want to thank you all of you for your service and contributions as well.
The City Council looks forward to your continued support as we face the challenges ahead.
You know that Mark Scott is leaving us after way too short a period of time.
Mark has been every bit the type of City Manager we hoped he would be, combining pragmatism, experience, community involvement with a kind and engaging manner. We wish you wouldn’t go, but as you are, we wish you well.
You have set a very high bar that our next City Manager will be expected to meet.
Thanks to the Chamber for organizing this event.
Thanks to Jenny Cook Catering for the food.
Thank you all for being here today.
Drive safely.
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