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# Big money interests get a free ride with Measure S
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/big-money-interests-get-a-free-ride-with-measure-s/
- Published: 2003-05-09T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:07:52.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import

The political process is for sale to the highest bidder these days. And nowhere is this truer than in Santa Monica and especially with Measure S, the school parcel tax measure on the June 3 ballot.

Measure S would add another $225 tax to every piece of property in the Santa Monica/Malibu School District. This would be in addition to a previous school parcel tax which already costs every property owner $104.

After Measure EE was defeated last fall, the ad-hoc parcel tax committee also known as the “Save Our Schools Committee” needed to create a school tax that would pass in June.

They concocted three proposals. All of them involved a flat charge per parcel but two of them included additional cents-per-square-foot assessments on the improvements or buildings on the parcel.

Large property owners and businesses complained. Rumors abounded that a cents-per-square-foot proposal would not be supported. Word was that local business interests and the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, intent on flexing newly found political muscle, might campaign against it.

What’s a school board to do? They bowed to pressure and chose the flat tax. Even though a cents-per-square-foot assessment would have raised more money for the schools and been fairer, they blinked, flinched and rolled over.

Chamber of Commerce President-elect and school supporter Nat Trives noted that the $225 flat tax benefits business. Trives said some businesses would have paid as much as $70,000 annually with one of the rejected cents-per-square-foot proposals. Trives was probably referring to one mega development with hundreds of business tenants that could have all split the cost.

That one business Trives used as an example would pay out more than $420,000 during the measure’s six-year life span. In comparison, a $5,000 or $10,000 donation to the “Yes on S” campaign is a sweet deal, indeed.

Doesn’t it seem a bit disingenuous for the business community to wax enthusiastically about how they’re helping education when intimidation and threats were apparently used to avoid paying a tax that would have provided millions more for schools?

No wonder the Chamber and business community are seeking donations and have hired a publicist to push this business-friendly tax proposal. Maybe it’s why real estate firms such as Coldwell-Banker are allowing Measure S supporters access to their phones for phone banking.

Large property owners such as Macerich (Santa Monica Place), Douglas- Emmett (Santa Monica Shores, Pacific Plaza, etc.), the Water Gardens, Malibu Bay Company and others are getting off cheap. They’ll pay the same $225 as every vacant lot owner, every condo and homeowner if Measure S passes.

Knowing that senior citizens generally vote against tax initiatives, they were bought off, too. Senior property owners, including landlords, over 65 years old who live on their property, are eligible for exemptions. Senior renters? No, amazingly, not in rent control paradise.

With hundreds, maybe thousands of senior property owners seeking exemptions, additional revenue will be lost. Measure S may not even raise the $6.5 million a year backers hope for.

Santa Monicans for Renters Rights dominates the SOS committee, Santa Monica City Council and the school board. SMRR is the champion of the poor, the exploited hotel worker and the low income renter, so herein is the dichotomy.

How is it that the SMRR leadership helped create — and the organization itself — endorses a ballot proposition that favors seniors wealthy enough to own property and big business?

What about the poor, working mom who rents a duplex? This will add $10 more to her monthly rent. How about the senior living on Social Security in a small Pico neighborhood fourplex? He’ll cough up $5 a month while the senior owner of a multi-million dollar Malibu beachfront or San Vicente mansion pays nothing.

The actions of the limousine liberals and socialist SMRRs who advocate for living wages and social justice for the poor speak louder than their rhetoric. Any fool can see that Measure S deprives the poor and those on the economic fringe of much needed money and resources while benefiting the wealthy and special interests. Isn’t this hypocritical?

But is all of this reason to vote no? It is if you want to send a message and end years of more unfair tax proposals, threats to our children’s education, mismanagement, hypocrisy, financial extortion and political game-playing. (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 9, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/050903.pdf?ref=smdp.com)