An Open Letter to Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights
I never imagined I would have to write this letter.
Not because I expected your endorsement, but because I grew up believing Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights stood for families like mine.
Working-class families. Immigrant families. People who worked hard, paid their rent, raised their children, and wanted the security of calling Santa Monica home.
My father, mother, uncle, and I have paid dues to this organization. We believed in its mission.
I still believe in rent control. I still believe in protecting tenants. What I struggle to recognize is the organization that claims to speak for us.
I was born and raised here. I’m a mother, small business owner, and renter living in a rent-controlled home. Rent stabilization isn’t a political talking point for me. It’s part of my life.
Yet for two election cycles, SMRR has portrayed me as a threat to renters. This year, you gave me an “F,” declared that renters cannot trust me, and sent an email questioning my integrity.
I received that email, too.
I am one of your dues-paying members. I am one of the renters you claim to protect.
Since when did independent thinking become a betrayal of renters’ rights?
SMRR helped establish and defend rent control. That history deserves respect. But nearly five decades of influence do not give any organization ownership over a community, a cause, or its elected representatives.
Its endorsements, political spending, and relationships with other influential organizations have made SMRR a powerful institution in local politics.
Who leads that institution today? How many decision-makers are renters themselves? How representative is its leadership of the working-class, immigrant, younger, and culturally diverse communities it claims to champion?
Diversity cannot mean inviting people into the room only if they agree with everyone already sitting at the table.
And progressive values must be demonstrated through actions, not simply claimed through endorsements.
Let’s talk about the actual record.
For four years, SMRR has characterized my 2022 proposal as an attempt to destroy rent control. I have repeatedly disputed that portrayal.
Yet this July, provisions advanced through our Rent Control Board and City Council raised serious legal concerns about tenancy succession and potential conflicts with California’s Costa-Hawkins law.
Those concerns led to extraordinary meetings on July 27 and 28, including a joint meeting of the Council and Rent Control Board. The disputed provisions were ultimately withdrawn.
Officials SMRR has endorsed were involved in advancing those proposals.
Where was the same outrage? Where were the report cards? Where were the mailers warning renters about those legal risks?
Good intentions don’t eliminate legal consequences. If SMRR-backed officials support policies that raise serious concerns, they deserve the same scrutiny as anyone else.
Rent control requires responsible policy, sound legal judgment, and accountability, even when the people making mistakes are political allies.
And let’s talk about political money.
SMRR’s recent email points to independent expenditures and contributions from landlords and aviation interests as reasons renters should distrust me.
Those contributions deserve transparency. So do the contributions supporting your candidates, the independent committees backing them, and SMRR’s own political operation.
Why is political influence treated as suspicious only when the money supports someone SMRR opposes?
I sought and received endorsements from our police officers and firefighters. Other independent committees have supported me without my seeking their endorsement.
Independent political committees are not my candidate-controlled campaign. Their donors do not direct my votes or determine my positions.
My responsibility is to the people of Santa Monica, not the donors of any political action committee.
If we want transparency, let’s examine everyone’s money, voting record, and political relationships. Not just those of people we oppose.
This is what hurts the most.
I’ve raised my children here, helped young people through music, operated a family business, and served the community that raised me.
I’ve also survived cancer and lost my father. Those experiences haven’t made me less committed to working families. They’ve made me more committed.
So when I see another glossy attack piece with my name on it, I don’t just see political advertising.
I see an organization my family believed in telling my neighbors that I am unworthy of their trust.
I see a lifetime of lived experience reduced to a political grade.
When did protecting renters become protecting political power?
I am asking SMRR to look inward. Open your leadership to scrutiny. Welcome younger renters, immigrant families, working-class residents, and independent voices. Hold your preferred candidates to the same standards you demand of everyone else.
There are seniors afraid of losing their homes, families struggling to pay rent, and tenants who need real assistance.
That work deserves our attention.
To my fellow Santa Monicans: Please do your homework. Our Council meetings and voting records are public. Examine them and decide for yourself whether political advertising reflects what actually happened.
Your vote belongs to you. Not SMRR. Not a PAC. Not a landlord. Not a labor organization. Not an elected official.
I will continue standing up for renters and working families, even when it costs me an endorsement, brings another attack mailer, or would be easier to stay quiet.
I did not survive everything life has put in front of me to be intimidated into silence by local political power.
I am proud of where I come from. Proud to be a renter. And I will not apologize for having my own voice.
Renters are not pawns. Voters are not puppets. And endorsements are not ownership of someone’s vote.
To SMRR, I say this with sadness, but also hope:
You helped build something important in Santa Monica.
Please don’t confuse protecting that legacy with protecting political control.
The families who built this city deserve better.
And so do the generations who will come after us.
Lana Negrete
Santa Monica City Councilmember
Lifelong Santa Monican, renter, mother, and small business owner