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# Director of hotel union feels snubbed by council
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/director-of-hotel-union-feels-snubbed-by-council/
- Published: 2002-08-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:39:00.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Council member suspicious of political machinations*

The director of one of Santa Monica’s most active unions said he was snubbed by the city council.

Kurt Petersen, the organizing director of the local Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, was not even considered Tuesday by the city council to fill one of two vacancies on the Convention and Visitors Bureau Board.

The union is actively trying to organize the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel and the Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel, and it currently represents workers at the Fairmont Miramar and the newly opened Viceroy Hotel.

“This was definitely a snub, and it’s very disappointing,” Petersen said. “It’s a shame that council people would be scared by the hotel industry.”

Santa Monica’s business community and managers of the city’s luxury hotels urged the city council to make an appointment that would not politicize the convention board but instead pick candidates based on their knowledge of tourism.

The council apparently heeded the advice, and appointed West Hooker, owner of a restaurant on the Third Street Promenade, and Carl Buchta, general manager of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, to the board. Petersen’s nomination was not discussed.

“They (council members) were so scared by business that they wouldn’t put somebody on the board from labor,” Petersen said. “It will continue a sad history of excluding labor from the table in Santa Monica.”

Petersen has been instrumental in helping enact the city’s living wage ordinance, which would raise the minimum wage for low-income workers at coastal Santa Monica businesses that earn more than $5 million a year from $6.75 to $10.50 with health benefits or $12.25 without benefits.

Opponents of the ordinance have challenged it, and voters will be asked on the November ballot whether or not they want the living wage ordinance to be implemented.

Petersen applied for the vacant position on the board because he wanted to bring labor’s voice to the city’s tourism industry. Labor representatives already serve on the tourism boards of major California cities, as well as New York City, he said.

After the nominating convention last month for Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, a powerful, local political group, there had been an apparent fallout between Petersen and Mayor Mike Feinstein, Councilman Richard Bloom and Councilman Ken Genser. The elected officials opposed a candidate supported by Petersen, who eventually won the endorsement.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown said he thought it was suspicious the nominations for the Convention and Visitors Bureau board had been delayed last June until Tuesday’s meeting, which is the first meeting after the SMRR convention.

“It may have been to have it postponed until after the (SMRR) convention so that council members seeking the endorsement wouldn’t feel pressured to vote for him,” McKeown said.

Typically, nominations are not delayed unless new applicants apply for a board or commission vacancy and have not been interviewed by the council. However, there had been no new candidates for the board’s vacancies when Councilman Richard Bloom asked the nomination process be delayed last June.

“I remember being surprised because we had more than a good number of candidates,” McKeown said.

Bloom has previously said he does not remember why he asked for the nominations to be delayed.

“It could have been because the meeting was getting late or that we didn’t have a full council,” he said. “I’m not sure why I asked for that.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 16, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081602.pdf?ref=smdp.com)