✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ Voters disapprove of council election reform
Santa Monica voters rejected a measure Tuesday that called for a directly elected mayor and would have divided the city’s seven neighborhoods into council districts.
Measure HH, also known as VERI- TAS, was defeated Tuesday with a vote of 15,865 to 8,717 with 100 percent of the ballots counted.
“I feel good,” said Paul DeSantis, an attorney and VERITAS author. “We ran a good campaign, an honest campaign.”
DeSantis said one of the main reasons the measure lost was because they were outspent two-to-one by those opposed it.
According to campaign disclosure statements, VERITAS supporters raised $57,000 as of Oct. 19 and spent approximately $99,000, leaving the group $42,000 in debt.
As of Oct. 19, anti-VERITAS forces had spent $45,000. It was unclear Tuesday how much the group had raised or whether it was in debt.
Anti-VERITAS stalwarts, such as Santa Monica Mayor Mike Feinstein, were unavailable for comment early Wednesday morning.
VERITAS proposed re-writing the city charter to create seven neighborhood districts from which council representatives would be elected and create a new position of a popularly elected mayor. The mayor would have had veto power over ordinances enacted by the council, and elected officials would have been subject to term limits.
Supporters of the measure say the new system would have brought accountability to council members who are currently elected citywide and it would have given the mayor — who is currently a council member appointed annually by the council — a mandate with which to make difficult policy decisions.
The measure is modeled after the city’s original charter, which was changed in 1922 to the current system. Supporters wanted to revive the old charter because they say residents from the Pico neighborhood, one of the traditionally poorer areas in the city, has never been elected to the city council.
But critics of the measure say it’s divisive to pit one neighborhood against another in a city of roughly 84,000 people. Critics say voters are being asked to trade the influence they currently have over all seven council members in exchange for having sway over just one.
And critics said the mayor position would have dominated local government, allowing special interests a way to control the city council.
VERITAS had come under fire recently from the Santa Monica Police officers and firefighters unions, which launched a direct mail and advertising campaign to urge residents to vote against the proposal.
And Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, a group that has long dominated local politics, sent out mailers encouraging their supporters to vote against the measure as well.
The measure was partially written to undermine the power of SMRR, which endorses slates of candidates for every elected office in the city and has done so since the late 1970s. SMRR candidates are in the majority on the city council, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board, the Santa Monica College Board and the rent control board.
By dividing the city into council districts, the average candidate would have been able to compete with the large sums raised by SMRR to elect its chosen candidates, the measure’s supporters said.
But even foes of SMRR say the measure would still have had trouble defusing slate politics in Santa Monica. They say large amounts of money would still have been raised by candidates and SMRR would still have likely had control five of the seven proposed council districts, retaining control of the city council.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 6, 2002. Read the original PDF.