Springtime in Glendale

Change is in the air. As spring winds sweep out the last traces of winter and welcome the first pitch of the baseball season, politics is never far behind. Tuesday’s municipal elections in Los Angeles hold the promise of big changes. But big change has already swept notoriously calm and cordial Glendale, which held its elections last week.

Two City Council incumbents were ousted and a third barely held on at the end of an uncharacteristically rambunctious campaign season. Mayor Sheldon Baker survived voters’ anti-incumbent wrath, but Mary Ann Plumley and Richard Reyes lost their seats to Virginia Bremberg and David Weaver. Both campaigned on a platform of shaking up City Hall by ending the clubby atmosphere and making government more responsive to residents.

Bremberg and Weaver may help restore some credibility to Glendale government, which earned a reputation in some quarters as being too cozy with developers as well as fiscally irresponsible. Although Bremberg is a former councilwoman and mayor, Weaver is a first-timer. Like the new spring and the new baseball season, new citizen-legislators offer promise and passion not yet dulled by the endless meetings and countless reports that is the day-to-day work of local government. Change is in the air.