Hometown boy? Council to consider adoption, support of West Wing’s Vinick
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula City Council
Published: April 01, 2005
The City Council will take time during Monday’s special Town Hall meeting to do something different: officially claim Senator Arnold Vinick as a resident of Santa Paula and declare support for his candidacy for president.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
The City Council will take time during Monday’s special Town Hall meeting to do something different: officially claim Senator Arnold Vinick as a resident of Santa Paula and declare support for his candidacy for president. If the council agrees, it will solidify the fact that Santa Paula might just be on its way to being the hometown of the President of the United States, at least on NBC’s hit television series, “The West Wing.”
The Town Hall meeting will be held Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the Santa Paula High School Auditorium. Although the meeting will not be broadcast live, it will be filmed to run on Adelphia Cable Channel 10 on Tuesday (4 p.m.) and Thursday (6 p.m.), with a special repeat showing on Sunday, April 10 at 1 p.m.
The effort to adopt Vinick as a native Santa Paulan began when Mayor Mary Ann Krause wrote to the show’s producer and award-winning actor Alan Alda. Krause noted that Alda’s character Vinick had kicked off his presidential campaign on the January 26 episode claiming a citrus growing area in California as his hometown.
“The West Wing,” starring Martin Sheen as President Bartlett, has been a top NBC hit for years, but what with term limits and Bartlett’s precarious health, a new president is looming on the horizon. Why not make Vinick a local boy, asked Krause.
Alda recently joined “The West Wing” cast as Vinick, who on a the January episode “mentioned that he grew up in an area in California that produced citrus. In the eyes of Mayor Krause, that could be only one place: Santa Paula,” City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said in February.
Krause sent a letter to Alda and executive producer John Wells two days after the episode aired, offering Santa Paula as Vinick’s hometown. Krause also sent Alda a full box of Santa Paula-related T-shirts, sweatshirts, and a Santa Paula Union High School baseball cap to wear on the program.
Within days, Krause received a letter on February 4 from Lauren Schmidt, a writer on “The West Wing,” noting that Alda’s character is still being developed. Schmidt was not ready to commit to all the intricate details of Vinick’s past, “However, we will definitely keep Santa Paula in mind if we ever take a journey back to Vinick’s home for campaign events.”
At Monday’s meeting the council will consider claiming Vinick as a resident of Santa Paula and whether or not to direct Bobkiewicz to take steps in support of his candidacy on “The West Wing.” “The West Wing” used Fillmore City Hall as the backdrop for a campaign kickoff speech by Vinick.
But Bobkiewicz is proposing that the Depot be designated as Vinick’s official campaign headquarters, complete with signage, throughout November’s West Wing election. In addition, Bobkiewicz is suggesting that the city create a Web site celebrating Vinick as Santa Paula’s favorite son and create a Vinick T-shirt and campaign button tying the presidential candidate to his hometown.
In all, the campaigning on the part of the hometown boy would be less than $1,000…but worth much, much more in publicity.
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