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# Globe trotters: Elected leaders paid for travel
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/globe-trotters-elected-leaders-paid-for-travel/
- Published: 2004-06-22T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:33:40.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Government & Politics, Malibu, #archive-import

*Pretty fly for elected guys: Officials take off*

(Editor’s note: This is the first article in a two-part series on City Hall’s travel expenses. The second article will look at what’s spending by department heads.) CITY HALL — The pay stinks, but there’s at least one perk to being an elected leader in Santa Monica — access to a $43,000 pot of travel money.

Professional conferences as far away as Athens, Greece, and Washington, D.C., attracted members of the City Council this past year. Taxpayers picked up the tab for those trips, including plane tickets, cab rides, hotel rooms, meals and other expenses.

Santa Monica’s $43,000 in travel money for its City Council appears to be slightly more than what surrounding communities set aside. Manhattan Beach and West Hollywood both earmarked $25,000 a year, while Culver City and Malibu save close to $11,000 apiece. Each of those communities have councils consisting of five people, while Santa Monica has a seven-person council.

Local council members said travel money is a key benefit to the part-time job, which pays just over $10,000 annually. The conferences allow council members to learn new skills, broaden their professional expertise and build up their list of contacts, they said.

“When I do take time to go and do these things, I am arranging my free time to go and do this, and then I have to arrange to get my work done... in some other compressed period,” said City Councilwoman Pam O’Connor, who spent $5,450 on travel this year and $11,800 last year, which was more than any of her colleagues, according to a City Hall report.

Mayor Richard Bloom was second on the list, spending $2,743 to attend conferences in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Portland, Ore. City Councilman Mike Feinstein ranked third with $2,018 in travel expenses and City Councilman Kevin McKeown spent $1,520\. City Councilman Herb Katz spent $179, while City Councilmen Ken Genser and Bob Holbrook didn’t use any of their respective $6,140 in allotted travel funds over the past 12 months, according to the report.

It’s common for travel money to go unspent. As of Monday, only about $12,000 had been used out of the $43,000 fund for this budget year, which ends on June 30\. Realizing there would likely be leftover funds, Holbrook at a recent meeting asked if that cash could be applied elsewhere. Holbrook hoped to fund popular community programs facing cutbacks.

That notion was viewed warily by City Manager Susan McCarthy, and the money will be rolled back into the general fund for next year. The programs Holbrook had hoped to help fund, particularly the Santa Monica Symphony, received money from other sources.

Holbrook said Monday he’d like more flexibility with unused travel money.

“I didn’t want to argue the point (at the meeting), because it looked like I got the money for the symphony and stuff like that — but I disagreed with the staff on their point of view,” Holbrook said. “I already had told the city manager to stop interrupting me.”

Finance director Steve Stark said it’s standard practice to absorb unused money.

“A budget is an estimate of what we think we will spend — so it’s good to not start transferring money until year end, to get a total look at all departments and all budgets,” said Stark, adding the finance team will compile final records for this budget year in the fall.

In the meantime, council members said when they plan to head out on a trip, they look for the cheapest flights and best deals to save City Hall money.

“I’ll do some of my own legwork, too, to keep costs down,” O’Connor said. “Frankly, it’s in my best interest, too — mine and the cities — to get the most bang for our buck.”

O’Connor recalled one conference she went to that taught participants how to testify. Just two months later, she was called before a congressional subcommittee to testify on behalf of City Hall about MtBE, a fuel additive that contaminated Santa Monica’s drinking water.

“It taught me technique — and skills — as to what to do and what not to with those few minutes you have in front of the house sub-committee... in terms of how to get your story over and understanding that your written testimony, you hand that in and it’ll be in the record,” she said.

“You don’t sit there and read from your written testimony... You say, I still have five minutes in front of them, now I need to tell them in a story. I need to tell them in a way that’s not dry.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 22, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)