Bloom to tackle violence, homelessness and public input in next 4-year term
(Editor’s note: This is the first article in a weekly series outlining the priorities of the four residents elected to the City Council on Nov. 2.) During the next four years, Mayor Richard Bloom hopes to tackle homelessness, gang violence and public participation — in no particular order.
Bloom was one of four people elected to the Santa Monica City Council on Nov. 2. He begins the new term on Dec. 7, the same day the council will appoint a new mayor to serve for two years.
Also elected were City Councilmen Ken Genser and Herb Katz, and Bobby Shriver. They will join incumbents Bob Holbrook, Kevin McKeown and Pam O’Connor, whose terms expire in 2006. Council members make upwards of $10,000 a year, and enjoy full health benefits and access to travel money.
A family law attorney who works out of offices downtown, Bloom said Monday he was eager to get to work with the new council, and began to lay out some of the specific steps he would like to take.
With regards to homelessness, which was a central theme of the contentious Nov. 2 campaigns, Bloom said he hopes to pursue the problem on two fronts. The first is to continue the work he’s done on a regional board focused on ending homelessness within 10 years. The board, called “Bring LA Home,” was formed at the direction of President George W. Bush. Similar groups have unveiled plans in cities across the country.
Secondly, Bloom said City Hall needs to be more aggressive in enforcing a set of laws aimed at reducing “anti-social behavior” in Santa Monica.
“I was on Arizona near the Promenade over the weekend with (my son) Robby and a guy followed us down the street, a guy who was panhandling just kind of followed us,” Bloom said. “He was very friendly, but it was very clear to me that this was a violation of our aggressive panhandling ordinance...
“I think the community has to identify those laws that need better enforcement and I would say that we’ve had a good number of complaints about homeless people congregating in some of our parks in a way that makes it appear as though they’re violating our anti-encampment ordinance,” added Bloom. “A lot of people talked to me about that during the election.”
Bloom said he would also push for stronger enforcement of a law designed to eliminate large-scale feedings in public parks. He added significant progress had been made in City Hall’s efforts to keep homeless people from sleeping in business doorways downtown.
“The priority is to make sure that our existing laws are enforced and to the extent our existing laws are not working, then we have to look at other options. I call out the feeding in the parks ordinance for specific attention,” he said. “Those feeding programs are counter-productive to the programs we have through social service agencies that the city funds, and I think that although the people that participate in those programs mean well that they actually do more harm than good.”
Bloom said another key priority of his in the coming four years will be to address the ongoing problem of gang violence throughout Santa Monica. Though shots have been fired recently in the eastside Pico neighborhood and Sunset Park to the south, Bloom said the community as a whole needs to address the problem.
“I think that we need to have a better understanding of our community based policing and how residents are interacting with the police,” Bloom said. “I think we need to, as a community, understand better the nature of the problem and that it’s not just a law enforcement problem, it’s also an economic issue, a socio-economic issue. It is a parenting issue. And so the solutions are more apt to be found in a number of different places.”
Bloom warned against politicizing the gang violence problem and said he hopes to study the matter independently as a council, and in conjunction with residents and the education community.
“I think we also need to look to other communities for best practices, in terms of intervention programs and school programs and the like,” he said. “It’s a complicated issue that entails youth in Venice and West LA and other areas of the city, and it’s a culture that in many ways is fostered... throughout the country.
“There is a very important role that needs to be played by all of the public entities in Santa Monica, including the college,” added Bloom, suggesting Santa Monica College do a better job of helping local high school graduates and creating job programs for older youths.
“We have the Rand Corporation that has studied this subject and they may be able to provide useful information too,” Bloom continued. “I don’t want to pretend that any of these things are new and exciting ideas... We just have to continue to look for the right solutions for Santa Monica. It’s very much a work in progress... I think everybody is working diligently.”
As a final priority, Bloom said he’d like to ensure that public participation continue to play a prominent role in the functions of Santa Monica government.
“We’ve had recommendations that could, if implemented, curtail public process in development review and that’s certainly something that I think both the development community, the residential community and the City Council has spoken out against,” he said. “We also have the very important land use element (a document that governs the city’s long-term growth) review that’s just getting underway.”
As mayor, Bloom managed council meetings over the past two years. Though he said the typically long meetings were shortened by about an hour under his watch, Bloom added more work can be done. How to accomplish it Bloom declined to discuss. He said it will be a matter for the new City Council to take up.
“I think we have an opportunity... to take a fresh look at how our meetings are run and we can probably do somewhat better than how we’re doing,” Bloom said. “I’m not really at a place where I want to talk about proposals for the future just yet. I’m still formulating them and I really want to get a sense of where the new council wants to go. It is up to the new mayor to facilitate that new process... I certainly think that our dialogue as council members can improve.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.