> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Santa Monica politics takes walk off its own pier - URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-politics-takes-walk-off-its-own-pier/ - Published: 2002-12-16T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T01:06:24.000Z - Author: Andrew Fixmer - Tags: Government & Politics, Pier, #archive-import *Appointment removes former City Council candidate from board* Talk about running for City Council and losing it all. Abby Arnold did. Arnold, a former Santa Monica City Council candidate, lost at the polls on Nov. 5\. Then, less than two weeks later, her appointment to the Pier Restoration Corp. wasn’t renewed by the City Council. Was she the target of political retaliation? The answer may lie in an unusual pre-election split among Santa Monica’s ruling party — Santa Monicans for Renters Rights. Council members appointed Josefina Santiago Aranda, a fellow candidate who was passed over by SMRR as one of its endorsed candidates for City Council. SMRR originally endorsed Arnold in a move that opened a rarely-visible split within the party. During the August SMRR convention, three council members — Richard Bloom, Mike Feinstein and Ken Genser — distributed a letter urging SMRR members to endorse anyone but Arnold. And Feinstein — who was mayor at the time and is an Aranda supporter — openly criticized Arnold during the campaign for not being strong enough on rent control and affordable housing issues to carry the SMRR banner. He also accused her of stealing the SMRR convention by stacking it with her supporters. Officially, council members — including the same ones who blasted Arnold — claimed term limits prevented her reappointment to the PRC, a nonprofit organization that oversees the Pier. Last year, the City Council voted that all board and commission members be limited to two three-year terms. Arnold had been on the PRC board since 1995. But term limits on the PRC can be overridden if five City Council members vote to confirm the appointment — and there are five SMRR members serving on the City Council. City Clerk Maria Stewart contacted Arnold during the election campaign to ask if she still wanted to be considered for another PRC term. Arnold said she didn’t want to bet everything on winning a seat on the City Council. So she told Stewart to add her name to the list of candidates. Stewart said calling Arnold and offering her the chance to be considered for another term was a mistake. “It shouldn’t have happened,” she said. “We miscalculated the amount of time she had already served.” But when it became clear Arnold couldn’t be considered, no one bothered to tell her. She infers that move — or lack of it — might have been a political snub, since five council members could override the term limit. “It sure looks that way,” she said. “They have in the past left people in there for years on expired terms, but they seemed in a hurry to get me out.” > “It’s an odd coincidence. Josefina showed an interest and I thought she would be good.” — — KEN GENSER Santa Monica City Councilman Arnold said she wanted to continue working on the PRC, where she had helped balance the Pier’s books and set the corporation on a new fiscal path that made it less dependent on revenue from corporations and more community-based. Arnold also had been central to the search for a new executive director of the Pier. “I would have liked to have to served a few more months at least to fulfill those jobs,” she said. “Even if you don’t want to give someone another term, there is a history of giving them some extra time to complete the work they have been doing. “I was still getting over the election and a couple of my peers on the Pier board said they would be talking to council members in my behest to try to get me back on, but I had no idea it would happen this quickly,” Arnold added. “It had been on the agenda for months.” Some council members claimed the switch had nothing to do with the City Council election. It was all about getting new faces on the PRC, they said. The group has historically had little turnover until recently, after it shuttered locally-owned Boathouse restaurant in favor of bringing in the Bubba Gump restaurant chain. “It’s an odd coincidence,” said Genser, the council liaison to the PRC. “Josefina showed an interest and I thought she would be good.” Until last year, the majority of the PRC’s 11-member board had been serving since the mid 1980s. The City Council approved a plan in 2000 that would rotate out members who have served the longest and be replaced with new people. However, some City Council members delayed the new appointments in the summer of 2001, citing that unfinished business needed to be cleared before the old members were removed. Some officials, including Feinstein, said the old members were kept on long enough to get a lease signed with Bubba Gump and force the Boathouse off the Pier. Aranda said she is enthusiastic about serving on the PRC, though it wasn’t her first choice, or even her second or third. “I would have loved to be on the women’s commission, but unfortunately there wasn’t a position open,” she said. “So I looked at the numerous ones available and most of the ones that were my top interests were not available at the time, and that’s when somebody suggested the Pier.” Aranda said while she is well-known in the Pico neighborhood for her community work, she felt a need to get involved in citywide issues as well. It also won’t hurt to have commission service on her resume if she decides to run for City Council again, she said. “One of the I think biggest concerns of residents of the community (during the City Council election) was that I hadn’t been on a commission before,” Aranda said. “So I think I should definitely be part of a commission, and maintain a commitment to the entire community; not just the Pico community, which is where I live and where I’m most involved.” Arnold said she has no plans to curb her interest in the Pier or any other issues in Santa Monica in which she’s been involved over the years. She said if running for City Council still makes sense in two years, she’ll be ready for another race. “I’m not going anywhere. I live here, and I have my role in the community,” Arnold said. “I have plenty to do as an activist.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 16, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121602.pdf?ref=smdp.com)