Resident support
Editor:
Term limits advocate Mary Marlow (“Why Vote for Measure TL?”, SMDP 10/20) asserts that incumbents like me "win largely because they can raise substantial amounts of money and have overwhelming support from powerful special interests…”. Ms. Marlow, as the head of Santa Monica’s Transparency Group, which examines office-seeker campaign finance reports, should know that is only a generality.
I was first elected to our City Council in 1998 with the Bernie Sanders-like promise not to take any corporate or developer money. I have kept that promise, without exception, through four subsequent elections, and into this one.
So who are my “special interests,” from whom I have the magic power "to raise substantial amounts of money”?
You are. You, the residents of Santa Monica. My most recent campaign finance report showed that over 85% of my contributors this year are Santa Monica residents. Half of those are small donors, under $100.
Yes, with 20 years of service and accomplishments, my name has become more familiar in our community — but if access to “substantial amounts of money” from “special interests" is what keeps Councilmembers in office, I am the exception to that rule… and proud of it.
Kevin McKeown
Councilmember