Culver City Beat

At last night's meeting, the Culver City Council voted 5-0 to negotiate a contract with the Spca Animal Shelter in Hawthorne. 

CC is currently contracted with LA County for animal control, which means we use the county's animal shelter in Carson.  But that shelter has been widely criticized, and animal rights supporters, including Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and Councilman Chris Armenta, were strongly in favor of switching to the Hawthorne shelter run by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

County officials at the council meeting last night said their supervisors at the county would probably be fine with delivering the majority of CC animals to Hawthorne instead of Carson.  The next step is to get that in writing from the county, then to get the contract with the Hawthorne shelter.

The most interesting part of this story, though, is not the outcome of the animal shelter vote.  It's the process and the politics that led to Monday's vote.

As reported by Ari Noonan of FrontPageOnline.com:

On another sharply partisan evening in Council Chambers when the subject of animal control once more brought out beastly feelings among members, the City Council thrashed around for hours last night, like marbles on steroids, before grumpily agreeing to approve of a dual animal shelter arrangement that had seemed foreordained.

But not before City Manager Jerry Fulwood, voice cracking, delivered one of the toughest speeches of his career, and not before Mayor Scott Malsin disgustedly looked up and down the dais at the perceived most stubborn members and snorted, “This is politics at its worst.”

Get all the juicy details on the drama at FrontPageOnline.com.