By Mark Shepherd Santa Monica
Tuesday’s City Council meeting again revealed a couple of things about our brave leaders. One, they don’t like each other much. Two, the Santa Monicans For Renters Rights people can be inflexible conservatives on the two big issues of the day: vagrancy and development, the low and the high.
On Tuesday night, the SMRR majority lost its attempt to delay for two years or longer a common-sense request to give homeowners who want to remodel faster answers to questions about variances from the city’s design standards. The strict standards themselves weren’t at issue. It’s that if you want to make your home, say, 18 inches wider to accommodate a staircase, why must you spend upwards of $25,000 and months, if not years, simply to get the city staff’s opinion?
The majority, led by Councilman Ken Genser, lost because the “emergency” ordinance, which had already simmered for two years, required more than four votes to pass. The minority got its way, asking city staff for more information about streamlining this variance process, and giving itself until August to sort it all out.
The issue kept the council way past its bedtime. It ended after the vote with Mayor Pam O’Connor pleading with Genser — she’s seen that look in his eyes — his arms locked across his chest — not to piss all over the winning side, newcomer Bobby Shriver in particular. But Genser spewed away, a demagogue’s invective of monster-mansion fear and doom. (The hair made it through OK.) But once Genser was allowed to speak, of course Shriver and Herb Katz answered. It was ugly, it was personal, and it didn’t bode well for the future, as the city grapples with the inevitable tsunami of market forces, individual property rights, and neighborhood quality of life.
All this was the undercard for the main issue of the evening, a comprehensive report on homelessness. But by then the Cranky Pants needed their sleep. A city staffer rushed through a major presentation like a guest wanting to leave a dinner party held by fighting spouses.
Police and emergency medical officials were among the experts who patiently waited all night but weren’t even asked a single question, though a council denizen did present for the record a verbal report of a her psychiatrist’s inquiry into her sexual preferences. Democracy: Yes!
This critical policy discussion concluded with Councilman Kevin McKeown fed up, grumbling he’s not going to talk about car camping any more! It’s off the table, but not according to Councilman Bob Holbrook, for most of the night quiet like Mount St. Helens, until rumbling that car camping should be illegal in Santa Monica! Period.
These complex issues demand flexibility and compromise. There must be workable, fair balance between individual rights and community standards. But with this council? We can hope while we wait. Tuesday night’s homeless policy session at least ended with unanimous agreement to — what else — send staff out for more information.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 25, 2005. Read the original PDF.