The man widely known as the father of Santa Monica’s political ruling party was a blue-collar kid from Minnesota who lit wrecked cars on fire in his backyard for fun.
Denny Zane, 56, was one of four sons to an aircraft mechanic, welder and steel worker who met his bride while serving with the Army in World War II. She also was enlisted.
Zane credits his mother for helping shape his liberal beliefs. He says it was her influence, coupled with his blue-collar roots, anti-war activism and study of ethics that launched him into politics.
As founder and co-chair of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, which celebrated its 25-year anniversary on Saturday, Zane has been a key player behind the driving force of Santa Monica politics. In addition, the former mayor and city councilman consults on issues ranging from air quality to transportation.
Married for 30 years with a 7-year-old son, PROFILES, from page 1 Zane is involved with the Community for Excellent Public Schools, a powerful nucleus of Santa Monica school boosters currently pushing for a charter amendment that would force City Hall to give $6 million each year to local schools.
Though he was born in St. Paul, Zane’s family moved to California when he was just 1 year old, and then to the town of Colton when he was 3. Zane said the family’s backyard was a virtual wrecking yard.
“One of the fondest memories of my life is tearing apart junked cars in our backyard in Colton,” Zane said in an interview last week. “And at the very last phase of tearing apart a junked car, you pour gasoline all over it and light it on fire... That was really fun. That was cool.”
Here, the Daily Press caught up with the conscientious objector and asked about him about his ideals.
You clearly have strong beliefs — from being a student of ethics to a union organizer — how did you form your values?
“God, I don’t know... I guess it comes out of your experience. My mother and father were not political — they voted, but they weren’t active. My father was a union member, but he wasn’t active with his union... He participated, but he was-n’t an enthusiast. He was a member.
“I certainly think that my working-class roots gave me an appreciation and a sympathy for the problems that working people face. The Inland Empire had a lot of smog, and so I think my environmental interest grew out of growing up in the smog belt...
“Now, certainly my mom, she was conscientious about fairness and justice. But she wasn’t an activist. Learning that being involved politically was the right thing for me, you know, my interests certainly grew up out of work on the antiwar movement.”
What kind of work did you do on the anti-war movement?
“I was involved in organizing demonstrations against (the Vietnam War) and protests at the college. I guess I was always the moderate radical. I mean, I don’t know if the radical really applies to students in those days. We were anti-war protesters, so, for example, when there was a protest being organized against military recruitment on campus, there was a group of students who wanted to organize to obstruct, to blockade, and I was against that tactic, and instead organized a week-long protest fast...
“My girlfriend Judy and I started out and ultimately about 300 people joined in and slept out in the quad in our sleeping bags, and we didn’t eat until the military recruiters came.
“And there was always worries among the college administration that there might be confrontation between the recruiters and the students that were sitting in... and I became a kind of liaison... to make sure that everything was peaceful. And it was.”
How did you first become interested in politics?
“There’s no question that participating and helping to organize protests against the war in Vietnam was a very politicizing experience, but I also learned from it what I was good at. I learned that I had a talent for it.
“I also learned, I think, that it was important. That reasonable people were important. I think I was a reasonable person. There was all sorts of opportunity for unreasonable people to determine the course of things...
“It wasn’t my only interest, but it was my first real (political interest), other than running for student council in high school. I ran for student body president and lost — so that could be discouraging.”
How much time do you devote to SMRR?
“Well, it depends. Election times, it becomes quite a bit more.
“I’ve been involved with SMRR for 25 years now and certainly, up through 1992 — which would have been the first 15 years when I was on the council — up to that point, it was the majority of my waking time. But since that point, it’s been less. I mean, it’s still a significant amount of time around election time, because I always coordinate SMRR elections.”
What about your wife, Louise — she doesn’t share your high-profile presence. Does she carry the same political torch?
“Her political values are very similar... Her parents were small business people, so she has somewhat more of the values from that experience. They had a small shoe importing business in Canada.
“She’s liberal, progressive, democrat — the way I am — although she’s not a citizen, so she doesn’t vote here. But her special interests are health issues...
“Louise is very independent and she has always, you know, felt comfortable with my schedule, and demands and meetings and stuff. And she loves it when I’m here; she’s happy when I’m not.”
You mentioned that you did a lot of hitchhiking when you were younger, how did you first get interested in doing that?
“It was for lack of any better alternatives. It was the summer during college, or spring break during college — if I wanted to go anywhere, I had to hitchhike. I didn’t have a car and couldn’t afford an airplane.”
What did you see on the road?
“A lot of America. Actually, my hitchhiking adventures came to be very, very useful when I was a school teacher.
“Whenever I would come into my class — and I taught mostly junior high school and high school, and mostly I taught math, but I also taught American history — if I had any reason to think that my kids were too rambunctious, I would tell them if they were really good, at the end of the period I would tell them a hitchhiking story.
“And that always guaranteed their complete cooperation, because they always wanted to hear tales of the ’60s.”
What is your most memorable story?
“Well, I guess probably going to Wreck Bay on the Pacific Coast side of Vancouver Island, and hitching across Vancouver Island to Wreck Bay.
“Wreck Bay was a little beach area that had this pile of timber washed ashore — in Canada there’s a lot of lumbering companies and stuff, so there’s a lot of timber that washed into the ocean and some of it washed ashore in Wreck Bay — but it’s all bleached out from the sun and the wind and the sea...
“It’s a pile about 25 feet high along about two miles of beach. This pile of timber became the infrastructure for a little colony of young people who were traveling around the world — maybe 300 people. And basically, you know, camping out and bonfires every night, where you would make clam chowder and fish too — and make fish the local fisherman would give you.
“It was fun. It was extraordinary.” (See related story, page 10).
Who are your idols — who do you look up to?
“Well, sort of speaking developmentally, I looked up to Henry David Thoreau, (Occidental College professor of ethics) Bill Neblett. I looked up to (UCLA professor of sociology) Maurice Zeitlin. I looked up to Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King — and Cesar Chavez.”
What about in the community? Whose work do you most admire?
“I really admire (SMRR co-chair emeritus) Nancy Greenstein. I admire (former city manager) John Jalili. I admire Ralph Mechur for his work on schools. I admire (former mayor) Judy Abdo. I really admire (Senator) Sheila Kuehl — and I admire our schools superintendent, John Deasy.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 19, 2004. Read the original PDF.