By Kevin Herrera
Daily Press Staff Writer

July 11, 2006

CITY HALL — The looks of confusion and boredom could be found on the faces of many audience members during Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting, as elected officials burned the midnight oil debating square footage and the reconfiguration of restaurant and retail space along the Third Street Promenade.

The future of recycling and garbage hauling also occupied the council, as did the appointment of commissioners and efforts to protect City Hall’s authority to regulate development — a power that is being threatened by a ballot measure known as the Anderson Initiative.

Debate dragged on for hours, prompting the council to postpone several items. By 11:30 p.m., the council was still pushing through its agenda.

Without any diagrams or drawings illustrating the many proposals for the preservation of outdoor dining on the promenade, the 20 or so in attendance could only sit and stare, eyes looking more glazed over than a dozen doughnuts.

Speaking of doughnuts, none could be found in the Council Chambers, for the snacks provided to the council included only the freshest and healthiest of fruits and vegetables from the Farmer’s Market, celebrating 25 years in Santa Monica. None was provided for the audience, as food and drinks are not allowed in the Council Chambers, that is, except for the council and high-ranking staff members.

The snacks brought back memories of Step Up On Second’s brief stint at City Hall selling food and beverages to those waiting for their turn to speak, something which can often take hours depending on the heft of the night’s agenda.

Before the council reconvened following closed session, peace activist Jerry Rubin lobbied Councilman Richard Bloom, and anyone else within earshot, to bring back Step Up or perhaps add a few vending machines to keep stomachs from growling.

Bloom jokingly said, “If we did that, then more people will start coming out and the meetings will last longer.”

“Well, at least some nuts or something,” Rubin said.

“We’ve been known to have a few nuts on the council,” McKeown shot back.

All jokes aside, the council dove into issues of the utmost importance, including the preservation of outdoor dining, which all members agreed was crucial to the character of the promenade. The debate over the balance between food service and retail has gone on for years, with the council going so far as to issue a moratorium on any restaurant-to-retail conversions.

Some in the audience and on the council feared that without a law maintaining current levels of outdoor dining, including preserving corner restaurants like Lagos and Café Crepe, the promenade will continue to evolve into a glossy, high-end shopping mall without the eclectic, small businesses that used to dominate.

Property owners have said that they can often get more money from retail stores than from restaurants, which has led to the gradual disappearance of some food service. They also complained of a lengthy and expensive review process that discouraged smaller businesses from moving into the area.

There was some disagreement as to how much space should be required for a restaurant to operate and for the outdoor dining to be significant enough to contribute to the atmosphere of the outdoor mall.

The council decided that for ground-level restaurants, property owners can now make minor reductions to the size of the food service to perhaps accommodate a restaurant and retail store.

The decision didn’t come easy, as the council had to put the debate on hold twice so that city staff could answer questions raised.

It lasted so long that City Councilman Bobby Shriver jokingly placed his head on the dais and pounded his fist, exhibiting some of the frustration audience members felt, including a handful of students from Santa Monica High School, who arrived dressed in suits to lobby the council for $15,000 to help pay for a trip to China in August, at which time they will compete in an international competition based on entreprenuership. They had to wait for hours before their request was heard. The council granted them $10,000.

The council later turned its attention to trash hauling, as consultants presented a report detailing options for residential and commercial service. Clearly, the council has some tough decisions to make when it comes to garbage collection and the future of the City Yards, where garbage is sorted before being transported to a landfill. City Hall can choose to sell the facility, dismantle it and redevelop the land, sell the land or expand the facility and make money from other haulers wishing to leave their trash there for short periods of time.

Mayor Bob Holbrook wanted to know how much the transfer facility was worth, something which no one knew.

The council must also consider whether or not it wants to remain in the trash collection business or contract with a private company. The council also could continue to compete with private haulers or become the only game in town.

Several audience members left following the trash talk. However, more arrived to take their place. They discussed Proposition 90 and its ill effects on City Hall’s efforts to control zoning.

“This is about retaining our own zoning power,” McKeown said.

Council directed staff to develop an incentive-based standards plan to protect local land use authority, particularly when it comes to the commercial zones. For mixed use projects, City Councilwoman Pam O’Connor asked staff to look into incentives for building child care on site, offering transit passes and on-site car pooling.

With that, the council approved housing trust fund loans and grants to the Community Corp. of Santa Monica to build two affordable housing projects on Fourth Street. Bloom was reaffirmed as the council’s representative to the Westside Cities Council of Governments (COG). Bloom is the newly elected chair of the Westside COG.

To end the evening, council got artistic, instructing staff to explore ways in which art projects in the public right of way could be authorized. That was in response to an art project entitled “A Red Line Connects Us,” in which a local artist painted a red line down the center of city sidewalks to demonstrate the amount of lives lost because of war.