On October 11, 2018, Culver City heard Dr. Manuel Pastor speak on demographics as part of a community meeting on the General Plan Update. The noted author and USC professor said that “Equity …needs to be baked in, not sprinkled on.”
Our challenge in Culver City is that privilege is what has been baked in. We have elected officials who serve without pay, tilting the field towards the reality that those seats are likely to be filled by folks with inherited wealth, or who are self employed.
City Council is a more than full-time job; anyone serving as mayor needs to be available to put in forty or fifty hours a week. Council members (and school board members) might be able to squeak by putting in twenty or thirty hours a week.
It’s a job. Without a paycheck. Designed for those who don’t need one.
We have had, and currently have, council members who also have jobs. Those jobs tend to be flexible; you don’t get more time or more money, but you have the option of moving the commitments around. Former mayor and council member Thomas Small worked at a non-profit organization, and current Mayor Freddy Puza, who works at a private university, are both examples of people who make the equation work by putting in all of their available time to fulfill the duties of holding office.
For current council member and recent mayor Dan O’Brien, being hired as President of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce looks like a win. As one of the many people whose jobs in the film industry have all but disappeared in recent years, O’Brien has been candid in admitting his career as a film editor was no longer providing income.
O’Brien could be what the Chamber needs to climb out it’s current death spiral. Unless he stays on the council.
When the late Steve Rose was on the council, he was also the President of the Chamber of Commerce. That’s not the same thing as having employment outside of elected office; that was clearly a conflict of interest. That was about our ‘baked in’ privilege, and the era when he held office.
Even then, it was obviously unethical. Former mayor and council member Scott Malsin noted more than a decade ago, “If that’s not a conflict of interest, I cannot begin to imagine what one might even look like.”
Rose ran the Chamber as a cult of personality. It was his private club, and anyone who wanted to do business in Culver City had to pay membership, and meet with his approval. (As someone who did not meet with his approval, I have a number of amusing stories – but that’s another essay for another day.)
The leadership role at the Chamber has been in flux since the departure of Colin Diaz, who left in March of 2022. Diaz was selected by Rose to succeed him, but other opportunities lured him away. Diaz was succeeded by Jesse Nunez in November of 2022, but he lasted only a few months. The late David Voncannon, who held the post as an ‘interim’ both before and after Nunez, was succeeded by Ed Wolkowitz in July of 2024. (Both Voncannon and Wolkowitz were long time members of the board of the chamber.)
O’Brien is a good fit for the job. But staying on as a council member, even if not explicitly illegal, is obviously unethical. How O’Brien can revive a floundering Chamber while still putting in time on subcommittees, conferences and meetings seems to predict that he won’t do well in either if he tries to do both. The longer he insists its not a problem, the bigger the problem becomes.
The Chamber has never been famous for ethics. The City Council needs to be.
The General Plan Update was a long overdue response to center power with policy, and not allow it to be held hostage to personality.
If city council members (and school board members) need a job to support their families and pay their bills, (as most people do -) they should have a basic requirement of ethics that would prevent them from being on a political action committee. Or, y’know, running one.
As the city begins the process of priority budgeting, we might look at how paying our elected officials to hold office (as most other cities do-) can open the field to some fresh talent.
Ethics and privilege are the topic of many conversations right now; we need to pull focus to just how it applies here.
Judith Martin-Straw
