Even those of us long aware of Mayor Lana Negrete’s shortcomings were aghast at her willful attempt Tuesday night to send us back into the previous Council’s vulnerability to “builder’s’ remedy” projects, giving developers free rein to threaten our neighborhoods with over-sized high-rises.
It’s one thing to disagree with state law; I’ve been there. It’s quite another to disregard state law, whether deliberately or through ignorance. Mayor Negrete pitched an embarrassingly public hissy fit when her more knowledgeable Council colleagues pointed out, in a non-adversarial way, that her proposal would once again have threatened the state’s acceptance of Santa Monica’s required Housing Element.
Retreating into her habitual petulant resentment, Negrete claimed to be a populist, pouting about the elite college backgrounds of her new millennial colleagues on the Council. One can only conclude that college taught the other Councilmembers how to learn, and particularly how to learn from their mistakes.
Fortunately for Santa Monica, Negrete has only one Council meeting left as Mayor. Voters a year from now can send her packing, as we did her similarly reckless allies… by margins of over 2000 votes, a mandate if ever we saw one.
Negrete’s whining about inadequate staff support, and the challenges Councilmembers face holding family-supportive employment (as they always have!), only illustrates that she’s just not up to the job.
Kevin McKeown
Retired former Mayor