By SUSAN TAM Special to the Daily Press
COLORADO CENTER — A handful of city voters won’t be citing a lack of representation anytime soon.
City Council candidates outnumbered members of the public on Monday night during a “Quality of Life” forum hosted by a group calling itself facts@santa-monicaqualityoflife.info. A total of four people showed up for the two-hour fete.
If quality of life is an issue weighing on the minds of Santa Monica residents, you would have never guessed it.
“How nice, a candidate forum with just the candidates,” remarked City Council candidate Kathryn Morea, with a trace of sarcasm, when she arrived at the Colorado Center.
At 7 p.m., candidates hoping to escape the rain and discuss the quality of life in Santa Monica arrived only to find an empty room with the air-conditioning blasting away and rows of empty chairs.
The evening had all the makings of an early dismissal, yet it turned out to be a revealing look at how some candidates really feel. Because the audience at its largest consisted of just four people, issues not previously discussed surfaced. In the intimate setting, candidates felt free to converse about wide ranging topics such as the plausibility of a citywide alcohol policy, eliminating civil service protection for City Hall department heads and affordable housing spending.
Noticeably absent from the discussion were the often routine, deadlocked topics like homelessness and traffic congestion.
“Twenty minutes after the forum was scheduled to start, the group abandoned the panel format in the front of the room and assembled their chairs loosely in a circle.
“Time to call this candidate therapy session to order,” joked City Council candidate David Cole.
While many of the candidates initially appeared vaguely amused, by the time the night drew to a close, many had engaged in a discussion that, at times, became lively and heated.
The discussion began in earnest when concerned resident Stephanie Barbanell, who called it “her dream come true” to have one-on-one time grilling the candidates, raised questions about implementing a city-wide alcohol policy. She understand that McKinley is a very high achieving school, with an API score of 819, well over the state’s interim target of 800. It is our highest achieving Title I school.
When a Title I school misses a single criterion for two consecutive years, the school is identified as PI. McKinley met 19 of its 21 criteria, including all criteria related to academic proficiency. However, one subgroup at McKinley (White, non- Hispanic students) participated at a rate of 92 percent according to state records on both the math test and English test, and this situation alone has created the PI identification at the school.
District officials with the assistance of the school leadership have begun a comprehensive data review to ensure that all records are accurate.
Schools identified as PI by the state are subject to certain requirements, and are also provided with district-level support. The district is expected to provide technical assistance to such schools; to notify parents of the school’s status; to offer transfer rights based on space availability; to set aside increased funding for professional development; and to establish a peer review process to review the school’s strategic plan.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 20, 2004. Read the original PDF.