By Jan Tousignant Santa Monica
Political yard signs have disappeared from lawns. But, what citizens of Santa Monica can’t pull up and dispose of easily is the rancor that seems to be stirred up in these local elections. In the case of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, an undeclared political party, it literally counts on the “poisoned well” effect as a means of staying in the spotlight of power.
The most recent well poisoned has been the relationships of employers and employees, disguised in the political garb of Prop. JJ. Although JJ lost by a small margin, SMRR gained big, in a tactical victory, by creating yet another divisive entity within this small city. Business now joins the list of those inducted into class warfare; man-made confrontations which are the mother’s milk of SMRR’s very existence.
Other wounded members include those who are affected by their individual rights or decisions to: rent or to own; live in a home or on the street; own a historical gem or own a home to live in. In each case, SMRR has devised a socioeconomic climate rewarding certain people for the category they pick or happen to be in. These people are renters, the homeless, the historically inclined and now the low-wage earner. All others are in the twilight zone of being ignored, even ostracized.
It always puzzles me how a group, such as SMRR, can continue its reign of inequities. You would think that the voting population would catch on, see the patterns and simply say “no thanks” to all the misinformation that spews from their overactive, competitive campaigns.
Prop. II, for instance, helped tenants in financing low and moderate ownership efforts, while Prop. KK literally took money away from such funding opportunities. It’s crazy, but the proposition that helped tenants to further themselves lost, and the one that kept them in indefinite “tenant limbo” won! How did that happen? When did good assistance become bad, and stagnating assistance become good?
The SMRR sword that carved out Prop. JJ was even more unjust. It took arbitration, the right to hammer out differences between those who are personally involved, and politicized it, polarized it, spinning legitimate worker and business concerns so that only distortions and anger remained. Why reasonable people, voting on such initiatives, can’t see how destructive such measures are is beyond logic. Please explain, what do workers gain when demanding such dramatic increases in wages from an unwilling employer in a targeted section of town? And how can any employer operate his business successfully without satisfied employees? Doesn’t it seem pragmatic that both factions do better when they congenially agree to their contracts?
Meeting some place in the middle is a process that should be implemented by the parties involved, not from outsiders wanting to extract an outcome for a political gain. And that is exactly the role SMRR has played in this manipulated event. Repairing the rips and tears made by JJ, in the workplace, will be hard. But Renters Rights will probably not be a part of any healing process. Instead, they most likely will continue to agitate until they put another “JJ” on a future ballot. After all, discontent, alienation, borne on the wings of a post election worker/business population, is just too tempting for this must-stay-in-power-at-any-cost group to give a pass.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 11, 2002. Read the original PDF.