Trives has taken the reigns just months before a contentious November election. Four seats on the City Council will be open, as will three seats on both the local school and SMC boards. The chamber has formed a political action committee to raise money and for the first time will be endorsing candidates, an action some current leaders feel is misguided.
“It’s their PAC, that’s the involvement that I’m concerned about,” Mayor Richard Bloom said. “I think that’s a strategy that ultimately backfires against the community here. I think it’s going to pit the residential community against the business community in a way that’s not productive.”
Specific chamber priorities won’t be hammered out until Trives meets with his board. Still, Trives said he would like to work towards stabilizing funding for nonprofit organizations and education, as well as work on acquiring more open space in Santa Monica. Trives added he was looking forward to serving as chairman during a year when the new UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital and Rand Corp. buildings will open, and significant progress should be made on the Civic Center plan, which involves an estimated $120 million revamp of the Civic Center area.
“If I’m standing, giving my farewell talk a year from now, and trying to figure out if we had a good year as a chamber, I would hope that some of the city’s more serious issues would be resolved through work with the chamber and the people involved with the issues,” he said.
“My whole personality revolves around the idea of consensus building,” — he said
Trives, a graduate of UCLA, CSU Los Angeles and SMC, was born in Birmingham, Ala. and moved to Santa Monica in 1949. He worked for years as a professor of criminal justice and political science and has served as mayor, and as president of Cross Roads School, New Roads School, the local YMCA and the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau, among numerous other groups.
Stepping down as chairman was Dr. Mike Gruning, who said he was proud to be at the helm as the chamber formed an immediate relief fund for victims of the July 16 Farmer’s Market tragedy. Gruning also said he was proud of the support the chamber’s shown for education.
Key frustrations from his year as chairman, Gruning said, were that a meaningful noise ordinance that doesn’t impinge on local merchants was never passed, the battle for a living wage appears to be resurfacing, and a traffic and parking study was never conducted on a city-wide basis. Studies that look at one area of town alone don’t do justice to the complexity of the issue, he said.
“I don’t think the concept of traffic calming is a particularly good one,” Gruning added. “I think you ought to be moving traffic through, not slowing it down.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 12, 2004. Read the original PDF.