Recent hedge controversy shows growing disconnect between politicians and citizens
By JOHN F. MULLER Special to the Daily Press
When Bobby Shriver found out that the inspector who cited his hedges photographed them at 6 a.m. two days before Thanksgiving, he decided City Hall had gone too far.
It was that kind of method of operation that incensed Shriver enough to consider running for local office. After mobilizing a group of homeowners and meeting with City Council members, as well as city planning officials, Shriver is still considering a run for City Council to challenge a government he says is keeping its residents down.
“I was bullied in this thing,” said Shriver, who is the brother-in-law of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and nephew of Sen. Ted Kennedy. “And I’d like to go in there and find out who the bullies are and have them pick on someone their own size.”
Shriver is one of a group of local homeowners and residents who say the focus on illegal hedges is a symptom of a larger problem — a City Hall that has grown increasingly out of touch with its citizens.
In a community that has been dominated by one political party for 25 years, some residents and city officials think that the dominance of a single group has left elected leaders unaccountable for their actions and distant from large blocks of voters.
‘OH MY GOD, HERE WE GO AGAIN’
Many residents on Adelaide Drive, a street lined with multi-million dollar homes overlooking Santa Monica Canyon and the Pacific Ocean, received letters this spring threatening fines of up to $25,000 a day and criminal proceedings if they did not comply with city regulations on hedge heights.
The residents quickly converged on City Hall, which has decided to stop enforcing the hedge ordinance until it is rewritten. Tim McCormick, the head of City Hall’s building and safety department, said the city won’t have it ready for 10 months at the earliest. The 1948 ordinance dictates local hedges be kept at or below 42 inches in front yards, while more recent updates set the limit to eight feet in side yards and back yards. Because City Hall has substantially altered its policies on hedge law enforcement over the past five years, City Hall sent educational materials to 435 residents in “focus areas" two years ago said Suzanne Frick, the city’s director of community planning and development. Santa Monica has 20,551 parcels, she said.
Shriver said he hadn’t heard about the ordinance in his 27 years as a Santa Monica resident.
Hedge activists have voiced frustration on issues ranging from how City Hall chose to enforce the hedge law to the ordinance itself. A group made up predominantly of homeowners began canvassing the city two weeks ago, collecting 700 signatures in three days. The group has been lobbying city officials to remove all hedge height restrictions.
“When the hedge thing came up, it was like, ‘oh my god, here we go again,” said Leah Mendelsohn, a homeowner who lives North of Montana Avenue and is planning to run for City Council this fall. “Why are they wasting their energy, money and time on hedges and not dealing with the bigger issues that affect everyone in this city, like the homelessness, the traffic problems, the crime throughout the city, and the problems in the schools?”
MOUNTING OPPOSITION Mendelsohn said the hedge issue provided people long frustrated with local policies a reason to mobilize and forget the failures of previous efforts. In 2002, for example, a ballot initiative that would have created voting districts and replaced the city’s seven-at-large council members with district representatives was defeated.
“I really think it’s an ideology of theirs that they want to have control over us,” Mendelsohn said. “I think that’s part of why there is so much emotion and people are getting more organized this time. It’s been a big build-up for years and hedges are directly affecting people that have been disenfranchised for decades. It’s a symptom of the greater problem.”
Jacob Samuel, an Ocean Park resident who along with Shriver has discussed the hedge issue with Frick, said the situation has garnered support from Santa Monica residents of all different political, social and economic walks of life.
“It’s been nice finding one thing that the people of this city unite on,” he said. “I never knew how much we had in common. Homeowners, tenants, low income housing, north of Montana, Sunset Park, Ocean Park... everyone seems to feel that this is something where we have a common ground and a common interest. Almost everyone we’ve talked to has given unconditional support.”
Individual residents like Mendelsohn, Shriver and other hedge activists aren’t the only ones challenging City Hall’s status quo.
The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce will be endorsing candidates for the first time this year, as will a political action committee made up of city employees. A group of local teachers and a coalition of living wage supporters already announced their picks.
The Santa Monican’s for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) group has faced little opposition since 1979. More than 300 members voted to endorse City Council candidates this past Sunday, which included two incumbents and two newcomers. The endorsements have been almost tantamount to elections for 25 years.
POLICE STATE?
City Councilman Herb Katz, an independent who is up for reelection this fall, said Santa Monica officials are out of touch with many residents because they don’t need to fear the responses of large blocks of voters. Katz said he believes there should be limits on hedges, but that City Hall should not have gone about the process in such an unfriendly manner.
“A lot of SMRR candidates are proenforcement no matter what it is,” he said. “If they have that attitude, I think they’re wrong. They’re too dictatorial, and I’m not just speaking to hedges... What kind of police state are we creating?
“What kind of police state are we creating?” — – HERB KATZ City Councilman
“I don’t believe one opinion or one group should have domination on the City Council,” he added. “We’re sitting basically with a 5 to 2 council. That’s not healthy. It needs to have greater diversification.”
City Councilman Ken Genser, who is seeking reelection and recently received SMRR’s endorsement, said City Hall had simply handled the issue poorly, adding that he would consider removing limitations on hedge heights. Genser said city staffers had not paid enough attention to the City Council’s directions.
“The letters that went out to the people with hedges were inappropriate,” he said. “The council has made it clear that we expect the first contact to be educational and not threaten people with fines or litigation. Unfortunately, the city staff didn’t follow that directive and sent out very threatening letters. I think that shouldn’t have happened. I also think it would have made sense to bring the law to the council to see if it wanted to make any changes.”
‘FIX IT’ TICKETS ON SHRUBS?
Frick said violators have always been given a warning letter before fines have been threatened. She stressed that officials did nothing out of the ordinary with regard to the recent hedge citations. But hedge enforcement had recently spiraled out of control because of actions taken by the public.
City Hall only responds to hedge, fence and wall violations on a complaint basis. Until 1999, City Hall didn’t have enough staff to enforce the hedge law, Frick said. However, an influx of complaints pushed city officials to start looking into the issue, she added.
When city surveys found a large number of violations, City Hall hired more enforcement officers and set the fine for hedge violations at $2,500 a day in 2002. Frick said the $25,000 figure came from a city planning department form letter delivered as a part of all compliance orders — those in which residents may be fined daily until the infractions are fixed.
The department used to enforce the code by giving violators a single fine and telling them to fix the infraction, but City Hall found that residents would often just pay the fine and ignore their code violations, Frick said. She added that when a complaint is received, City Hall now has to look into the entire block on which the property is located because of earlier complaints of selective enforcement.
As to why the City Council didn’t think about making changes when it set the fine at $2,500 in 2002, Genser said the changes were in a list of hundreds of possible violations.
“I don’t think anyone paid attention to that particular violation,” he said.
EYES TOWARD NOVEMBER Denny Zane, a co-founder of SMRR and a co-chair of the group, flatly disagreed with the idea that SMRR has grown out of touch with the community, though he said he’d been largely surprised by the emergence of the issue.
“No one on the council had any inkling that there was a hedge controversy brewing,” he said. “Certainly, I think they were all surprised. My guess is the council as a whole feels somewhat embarrassed.”
Zane was confident that SMRR isn’t losing any of its clout.
“In the Santa Monica that I’ve known for about 30 years, there are always new organizations and efforts making their voices heard, and that’s what we love about democracy,” he said. “The way a pluralistic democracy works is that these groups, they’re not all fighting with one another. SMRR is just as they are. The big difference for SMRR is that it’s sustained itself in a groove over the years because the issue that formed its core was an issue that was at the very core of the community and its health.”
Robert Stern, the president of the Center for Governmental Studies and a former Santa Monica resident, wasn’t so sure. He said the weakening of SMRR is only a matter of time.
“Any organization that’s been in power for so long is going to see some splinter groups,” he said. “The only question really is how long SMRR can continue to dominate Santa Monica politics like it has. It can’t do it forever. How long? We may know after November.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 3, 2004. Read the original PDF.