Burt's Eye View: A Whole Lot of Mayors

Since I moved to Malibu not even 18 months ago, we have had three different mayors. I kid you not. I call that a whole lot of mayors. If you address all residents of Malibu as “Mayor,” you have a pretty good chance of being right a good chunk of the time.

Back in the “old country,” mayors seemed to come and never go.  The mayor of Cliffside Park, the town next to Fort Lee, New Jersey, where I was mayor, was mayor before I was elected 40 years ago. To the best of my knowledge, he is still mayor there. If they ever do an autopsy after he passes on, they are going to find more chicken dinners than Frank Purdue ever produced.

I was elected mayor of Fort Lee in 1971, and since then Fort Lee has had four mayors for an average of a little less than a decade a mayor or more than 10 times the average tenure for a Malibu mayor.

As in almost everything, there are two sides of the same coin. The advantage of having a mayor’s tenure last a little more than it takes to produce a child is simple enough. If you accidentally elect a scoundrel, he or she will be out of office before too much damage is done.  On the other hand, if an honorable citizen is elected mayor, by the time that individual has gotten to know the ropes, and becomes familiar with the various players in State and County government, the mayor is history.

If the term for mayor in Malibu remains nine months plus a little, going forward I intend to play it safe and address all as "Mayor."