There are seven official neighborhood organizations in Santa Monica, and last week the city seemed poised to wage war on them. But instead of echoing the combative impulses of our current President, it looks like Santa Monica’s elected leaders might take a page from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach to neighbors by choosing co-operation and solidarity instead.
Might is the key word.
The internecine skirmish began on July 24th when three City Council members voted against the $7 million budget agreement in order to lodge their objection to $49,000 being allotted to the neighborhood groups (Friends of Sunset Park, North of Montana Association, Ocean Park Association, Santa Monica Mid City Neighbors, Santa Monica Northeast Neighbors, Pico Neighborhood Association, and Wilshire-Montana Neighborhood Coalition).
However, council members have suggested that the opening salvo was further back in November 2024, when two of the groups endorsed opposing political candidates in the Council election. And they have a point.
Many people would object to taxpayer dollars going to organizations that make political endorsements. However, there’s a big difference between citizens taking potshots at politicians and those same politicians using the power of the state to attack their perceived opponents. There’s more than enough of that taking place in Washington without Santa Monica joining the fray, so it was disheartening to see the punitive application for city funding that recently emerged.
It allows the neighborhood groups to continue operating (after some previous debate on the topic), but it forbids them from communicating with residents through the mail. It prohibits political endorsements, as expected, but it also seemingly prohibits groups from talking with candidates or expressing opinions about ballot measures. These constraints were supposedly stipulated to fulfill the Council’s instruction that funding for the organizations be narrowly limited to “community building.”
“It sounds to me like their policy is more community destruction than community building,” said Douglas Mirell, a first amendment attorney and a partner at Nolan Heimann LLP.
To be clear, the city isn’t obligated to give a single dollar to any of these organizations, but if they’re choosing to give grants, it seems questionable that it would be legal to have so many strings attached. And it turns out that it’s not.
“They’re breaking the constitution,” said Mirell, explaining that the restrictions of communication methods and topics that can be discussed are violations of free speech. He added that there are also likely Brown Act violations, since the restrictions were not part of the Council’s vote during their public meeting.
The Council is additionally requiring the neighborhood groups provide the city with demographic data about their members (including race, age and income). Ironically they’re doing this while California is suing the Trump administration for making similar demands from colleges. California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the federal government’s coercive effort as “unprecedented” and said it was “likely to produce unreliable data that could be used to launch politically motivated investigations.”
This isn’t the behavior one expects from self-described progressive leaders who give speeches at No Kings rallies. Some of the council members recognize that.
“It is not the intent of this council to chill free speech or to chill participation in our civic life,” said Mayor Caroline Torosis. She remained firm that political activities are inappropriate for recipients of city grants, but she expressed strong support for the neighborhood groups and deep concern about proscribing their rights.
Given that the grant application deadline was last week, this may seem a day late and a dollar short. It’s tempting to think that the Council was once again dipping their toes in the kind of autocratic behavior they otherwise bemoan. But that’s partially because it’s tempting to ascribe malevolent motivations to actions we find objectionable.
It’s equally possible that the problem was just plain human error, which is nothing for anyone to be proud of, but there wouldn’t be so many marriage counselors if we all communicated well with each other. It’s also worth remembering the immensity of council members’ responsibilities. This isn’t an excuse, because they each chose to take on their role, but I counted over 400 pages of material to review just for this week’s Council meeting, and that’s not including a 232 page audit report.
There’s also a last-minute addition: the Mayor announced a special meeting about the neighborhood organization grants.
“I think that we need to have a serious discussion about what the original direction was from the Council and where the discrepancies are,” the Mayor said. “I don’t want to irreparably harm our relationship with the neighborhood groups.”
We can choose to chastise elected leaders for not being the superhuman people we’d prefer them to be. Or we can be grateful and meet them halfway when they admit their foibles. It seems to me that in a world at war, we could all use a little more grace and neighborliness.
Devan Sipher can be reached at Devan@smdp.com.