Panel to Look in Crystal Ball at Culver City of 21st Century

The Culver City Council is forming a citizens committee to envision the city in the 21st Century and develop a strategic plan that will serve as the basis for crucial decisions concerning development, density and traffic.

The steering committee will consist of 20 residents, the mayor, each of the 10 city department heads, one representative from each city commission--planning, civil service and human services--and one representative from the Board of Education.

The committee, part of the strategic planning process called Direction 21, will meet four or five times over a nine-month period starting in October.

Threat to Ambiance

No longer a quiet enclave of single-family homes amid sprawling movie studio back lots, Culver City has grown to the point where its suburban character is being threatened, according to city officials.

“I’ve seen the city grow from a small city of 12,000, with hardly any industry, to a city of about 40,000 residents,” said Syd Kronenthal, director of the Department of Human Services, a city employee for more than 40 years.

Another 300,000 come to Culver City every day to work or shop, he said.

Kronenthal, who called the strategic plan “long overdue,” said the key issue is quality of life.

In its quest to keep the city financially solvent, the council in recent years has increased the tax base by approving commercial and industrial developments without considering the overall effect on the city’s residential atmosphere, he said.

Councilwoman Jozelle Smith said the strategic plan will help the council become more farsighted in its decision-making.

‘Rash Decisions’

In the past, Smith said the council has made “some sort of rash decisions about land use,” an example of which is the “proliferation of mini-malls” around the city.

“They’ve been an eyesore,” she said.

Resident Morris Marmon said he would like to see the committee address the need for housing on the east side and in the center of Culver City along with the issues of traffic congestion and density reduction.

Marmon, who criticizes the council regularly in his column in the Culver City News, said he is not applying for a position on the committee.

“I don’t want to be on it,” he said. “I want to be a citizen in town looking at it.”

Al Friebert, a resident who is applying for a committee seat, said he would like to see the city develop a movie museum, studio tour or other tourist attraction to capitalize on the city’s history as a film-making center.

“This is supposed to be the movie capital of the world, and they don’t even have a good picture house here,” he said.

Councilman Richard Alexander said he has been pushing for the strategic planning process for 10 years.

Alexander said he would like to see the city’s commercial and industrial areas revitalized to provide a tax base to pay for public services.

“Everything in government’s a trade-off,” he said. The committee will explore the problem of balancing development and the traffic it brings with non-development and possible urban decay.

Alexander said he would like to see the committee develop a plan that will serve as a ruler against which all city programs will be measured.

“It’s like the Constitution,” he said. “The Constitution is a ruler against which all laws are judged. And that’s what this should be.”

The deadline for applications for the 20 resident seats is Sept. 18. The council will appoint committee members on Sept. 28 and the first meeting is scheduled for Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.