BLAST WEEK, A NUMBER OF SANTA Monicans trekked to City Hall and withdrew paperwork necessary to run for City Council, Board of Education, Community College Board and Rent Control Board.
Mayor Pro-Tem Richard Bloom and Councilman Ken Genser pulled papers. They were both endorsed by the powerful Santa Monicans for Renters’ Right political organization in 2004 and will most likely receive SMRR’s endorsement this year.
Bloom was first elected in April 1999 to fill a seat vacated seat by Asha Greenberg who left the community. He has served continually since then. Genser has been on council since 1988. The two other coun-cilpersons whose terms will expire — Mayor Herb Katz, who says he’s in and Bobby Shriver, who is still undecided — have not drawn papers, yet.
Potential candidates must meet certain paperwork requirements, collect and turn in 100 signatures of registered, Santa Monica voters by Aug. 8 to appear on the ballot. Inevitably, some who’ve announced they’re running will drop out.
I’m amazed that three current Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District School Board members are re-upping. Jose Escarce, Maria Leon-Vazquez and Ralph Mechur must think they’re doing a good job, but since 2004, we’ve seen two Superintendents of Schools come and go, a flap about supposedly banned confidentiality agreements and a firestorm over treatment of special education students. The board’s lack of oversight includes the recent stink over district reporting policies regarding abuse of children by faculty and/or staff.
Even the state auditors chimed in by criticizing the board for it’s failure to understand and properly oversee district business affairs, two years ago. It’s become so bad that some Malibu parents are moving to form their own school district which, if it succeeds, will not be “Santa Monica/Malibu” any more or even “Unified.”
This trio may not deserve re-election but they should receive the Chutzpah Award for wanting four more years of nonsense like the last four. Former Santa Monica city employee and Santa Monica High PTSA past president, Judith Meister and two others are challenging the incumbents.
A whole lot of folks new to local politics have pulled papers. It’s a mystery to me why persons who’ve never been particularly involved politically want to or think they can govern.
The recent “mountain-out-of-a-molehill” fiasco over the removal of “unsafe” ficus trees on Second and Fourth streets Downtown has predictably produced a couple of attention-starved council hopefuls who will go nowhere. And, it wouldn’t be Santa Monica if there weren’t candidates who come out of the woodwork every two years to run again and again. They do it for their ego and waste everybody’s time.
In previous elections, problems generating the most citizen complaints such as the homeless and vagrants, traffic and parking never morphed into resonating campaign issues. But, this year, the whole development/traffic thing finally has residents keyed up and pissed off.
A growing number of citizens are appalled by the massive “The Village” proposed for the Civic Center and the city’s Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) update to the general plan. Complaints about LUCE’s recommendations for huge amounts of new development, extra building height and even more traffic jamming are growing.
Citywide, development is the big deal. I predict the Residents Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT), the initiative on the fall ballot that restricts commercial development to slow traffic growth, will be a winner.
Being the case, anybody officially supported by the activists associated with RIFT’s creator, the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC), and other slow-growthers should have momentum behind them. Ted Winterer, former Daily Press columnist and active with both SMCLC and the Ocean Park Association should get lots of attention.
The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce is on record opposing RIFT. Hotel and business interests will likely endorse Katz and Shriver (if they run) as they did in 2004, and one or two others. However, candidates they support run the risk of being perceived as pro-development. With potential SMRR candidates also supporting more growth, endorsing LUCE principles and opposing RIFT, strong independent candidates have a good chance of winning council seats for the first time in decades.
Undaunted, the Renters’ Rights majority on council supports LUCE’s suggested reduced on-site parking requirements, more generous height and density allowances and hundreds, if not thousands, of new “affordable” rental units. All this future rental housing (no homeownership, please) reads like a clumsy attempt by SMRR to expand its voter base and maintain a political grip for three more decades.
With no pending threat to rent control that SMRR can use to scare renters this time around, the big question is whether voters will decide if the incumbents should carry on as usual or whether it really is time for a change.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 21, 2008. Read the original PDF.