By MY WRITE BY BILL BAUER
Primary elections are Tuesday. I hope you’ll get out and vote.
There are four leading candidates vying for Fran Pavley’s 41st California State Assembly District seat. Not surprisingly, they’re nearly all Democrats.
I voted absentee ballot for Barry Groveman because I think he’s the most likely to accomplish something in Sacramento and he’s a centrist in his political views. I also like Groveman’s common sense, non-ideological solutions to problems.
A local online columnist posted that Groveman’s solutions to issues such as traffic problems — synchronizing traffic lights to keep traffic moving and more tow trucks — are “useless.” Unfortunately, it’s the obvious solutions that’ll move traffic along.
Here, traffic lights are synchronized to slow and stop drivers at every intersection. But Groveman advocates timing signals to keep traffic moving which better serves the public. In the nutshell, that’s the difference between the way Santa Monica leaders solve problems as opposed to leaders in other communities.
When I was traveling back East last week, I told people how we try to solve problems by social engineering. When I said our traffic managers actually work at reducing a street’s capacity to carry vehicles — except for bicycles — and jam traffic, they shook their heads. When I disclosed that City Hall’s priority is to build hundreds of units of affordable housing annually that go mostly to outsiders, they were aghast.
When I revealed how much money we spend on ineffective programs for vagrants and transients including apartments for chronic street drunks, their jaws dropped.
Our leaders are in their own utopian dream world. Beyond the city limits, this kind of “progressiveness” is met with ridicule and disbelief. We’re too far out there, too extreme and now becoming known as “crazy Santa Monica.” Maybe it’s why our politicians generally don’t do well running for statewide offices.
Santa Monica is full of problem solvers who think by forcing everyone onto busses and bicycles, traffic woes will be cured and that providing even more homeless services will reduce the number of vagrants on our streets. It’s the same deep thinkers who rail against urban sprawl, yet advocate for more growth and higher densities.
I think it’s why we have politicians like school board member and former board chair Julia Brownley, whose tenure has overseen an increasingly financially unstable school district that in recent years has had to resort to two parcel taxes and a $6 million annual grant from City Hall just to keep it afloat.
Racial and discipline problems abound. A couple of bright high school kids recently complained to me about how the academic standards at the high school have been lowered. While much of this can be blamed on controversial former school superintendent and job hopper John Deasy, Brownley voted to hire him and enthusiastically supported him throughout his turbulent five years here.
Going further out, Kelly Hayes-Raitt’s answer to solving even mundane problems usually involves more social reform. Or Jonathan Levey, whose connections with mega developer, Catellus Development Corp. raises a red flag with me.
Another interesting aspect of this campaign is the roll of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) co-chair Denny Zane, who as of April 28, had been paid $26,500 for consulting on Brownley’s campaign. Insiders tell me that this is a good test of Zane’s influence beyond Santa Monica. If Brownley wins the primary, Zane’s stock is up. If she loses, it will be further evidence that Zane and Santa Monica’s leftist philosophy is limited to SMRR and its supporters.
Even more interesting is the break between centrist and leftist Democrats. The moderate, more traditional Democrats such as City Councilmen Bobby Shriver and Herb Katz and Mayor Bob Holbrook are supporting Groveman. Many SMRR Democrats are behind Brownley and the leftists are supporting Hayes-Raitt, whose anti-Iraq war stance they admire.
You can bet if Brownley loses she’ll probably run for City Council. Rumors abound of a “dump Pam O’Connor” campaign by many SMRR insiders. There’s some talk, perhaps because of the Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS) connection, that Brownley might even by courted by business interests to run on their slate with Holbrook — if she does-n’t seek or receive SMRR’s endorsement.
Win or lose, we’ll be seeing more of all these Assembly candidates in the future. (Bill Bauer is a 40-year observer of the local political scene.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 5, 2006. Read the original PDF.