More than 150 people signed up to speak at the City Council meeting last week. And many more people gathered in the chambers as well as at competing rallies outside City Hall to make their voices heard on the topic of the airport conversion.
There were soccer moms, union workers, teenage softball players, city commissioners, and even two past mayors offering up their passionate and discordant visions for the future use of the airport land. There were also aviation aficionados who were there to champion keeping the runway open. Even with a new Council rule limiting public comment to one minute per person, the meeting lasted eight hours.
This is what democracy looks like.
People showed up and engaged in civil debate. That’s no small accomplishment in the current political climate, though if a Martian were to have landed in Santa Monica last Tuesday, they might have concluded that the biggest civic challenge facing our society is deciding what kind of park we should build.
Should it be a “Great Park” with solely recreational activities that can emulate New York’s Central Park (which should be noted has numerous and necessary commercial activities)? Or should the park be less great in size but also incorporate housing for city workers or low-income residents (which would require a voter referendum that is far from assured)?
I would be hard pressed to say if there were more people at the meeting favoring one viewpoint or the other, though each side presented polling that “proved” they represent the majority of citizens. But if the question is which side won, the answer is the city.
“It really makes me feel so proud to live here,” Mayor Pro Tempore Caroline Torosis said at the conclusion of public input. “Regardless of the fact that everyone might disagree, we all did it respectfully.”
Of course, there were moments of pique, both in the chamber and on the dais. But for the most part, attendees’ comments were offered courteously, and the Council listened patiently before providing extensive comments of their own. There was also some astute questioning of city staff, particularly from Councilmembers Ellis Raskin and Jesse Zwick.
However, there was an anticlimactic feeling to the proceedings as the realization set in that this supposedly do-or-die moment was neither. The airport conversion project is still at a preliminary stage, and the Council was not being asked to make the kind of definitive choice that many residents, as well as some Councilmembers, seemed to think was imminent.
It’s hard to know if Murphy’s law or human error was more responsible for the misunderstanding. Despite painstaking effort to create maximal transparency, the planning process has become somewhat opaque, and perhaps there’s a direct correlation. Staff have earnestly labored to involve the public in every step of the sausage getting made, resulting in multiple complex and confusing surveys. Democracy can be messy. And inefficient.
But on Thursday we will celebrate the 150th birthday of this improbable small beach town on the rim of an urban metropolis. What are the odds that Santa Monica would have become a separate city, let alone remained one as Los Angeles annexed neighboring towns and territories? We can take pride in the frontier spirit and adaptability that has permitted this city to persevere through many a downturn, and we can hope that we will continue to persevere and prosper for another 150 years.
Happy birthday, Santa Monica. Keep showing up. Keep making your voices heard. And as Mayor Lana Negrete often says, “Keep it sassy.”
Devan Sipher can be reached at Unmuted.SMDP@gmail.com