The blizzard of puffery, flummery, lies, deceptions and doubletalk that has engulfed Santa Monica voters this fall hit a new low Thursday with the appearance of a “guest column” in the Santa Monica Daily Press by Terry O’Day and Judy Abdo, the co-chairs of “Save Our City” (SOC).

The duo has spent weeks and hundreds of thousands of dollars of developers’ dough on a campaign whose sole purpose is to scare residents into voting against Proposition T, a ballot measure that would limit new commercial development to 75,000 square feet annually.

Conceived and crafted by residents who cherish this iconic beach town, Prop T is a modest and sensible measure. There is nothing scary about it – unless you are a developer with a major commercial project on your computer or a self-anointed “community leader” whose ambitious plans for the place would be trimmed.

Armed with buckets of developers’ money, O’Day and Abdo, their cadre of said “leaders” and their minions have mounted an unprecedented and shameless campaign to divide residents, and thereby maintain the status quo.

According to the anti-T propaganda, this sensible, modest measure would slash school funding, reduce city services, limit the hospitals’ ability to “provide essential health services,” endanger renters and working families, and virtually end life as we know it in Santa Monica.

Bummer!

The thing is, these alleged perils are utterly bogus. pure fantasy, conjured out of conjecture, surmises and desperation by special interests and our so-called leaders who will say anything to maintain their control of Santa Monica’s destiny.

My desk is awash in SOC propaganda, and none of it cites the bases for its extraordinary allegations. Nor does it note anywhere that the developers and the so-called leaders are the only people who would lose anything if Prop T were approved. And all they would lose is the excessive power they shouldn’t have had anyway.

The column gathers all of SOC’s previous lies, deceptions, allegations and charges into an extended narrative that suggests that a small group of malcontents is out to wreck everything for reasons unknown for everyone else.

In other words, , it’s a work of fiction, in which the real villains – O’Day and Abdo and company –are the heroes, and the real heroes – the authors of Prop T — are the villains.

O’Day and Abdo begin by righteously charging that Measure T is a deceptive, irresponsible and unnecessary measure that would not reduce traffic as promised, and may make it even worse. And Measure T threatens to harm important community services including our public schools, public safety and health care… we have formed Save Our City, a broad-based coalition that includes Santa Monica’s classroom teachers, police and firefighters associations, SMRR (Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights) leaders, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, environmentalists, health care advocates, the Chamber of Commerce, nonprofit and religious leaders, and hundreds of Santa Monica residents.(see veourcitysm.com/opposes.html for full list).”

The narrative natters on, repetitiously, “The voters should not be fooled by the scare tactics and deception being used to sell Measure T.”

In fact, Prop T backers’ “scare tactics” have consisted entirely of predictions of reduced traffic and congestion, fewer mega-projects and slower, more measured growth. We have yet to encounter any resident who is frightened at the prospect of reduced traffic and measured growth.

According to the narrative, “ the only expert traffic study of T concludes that it will have virtually no impact on Santa Monica traffic”.In fact, there has been no “expert traffic study”– just theories and surmises, and wishful thinking on the part of SOC.

Abdo and O’Day then lavish praise On the “city’s new, nearly-finished General Plan update known as the LUCE..” which, they say, will do everything Prop T purports to do, and more.

In fact, LUCE may be the worst land use and circulation plan ever concocted by City Hall. It not only doesn’t solve existing problems, it creates new problems. The new Council’s first order of business should be to order the planners to start over again.

As it rolls on, the narrative becomes more and more fanciful, claiming that Prop T threatens non-profits and “encourages demolition of rent- controlled apartments and their replacement with expensive condominiums, thereby displacing renters. And T would impede the city’s strategy of building workforce housing (with resident-serving commercial uses) in its commercial zones.”

Apparently, O’Day and Abdo believe that their new best friends, the developers, would go wild if T passes, and roll their bulldozers down on the most vulnerable members of the community. Now that’s scary!

While Abdo and O’Day list “the Santa Monica Malibu Classroom Teachers Association, nearly every member of the school board and college board, two leading education advocacy groups (CEPS and LEAD), most council
members and many education activists” as opponents of Prop T, it fails to note that they oppose the scary, distorted SOC version of the measure, not the actual sensible, modest measure that’s on the ballot.

It also fails to note the central role of the SMRR steering committee. which includes Abdo, in the anti-T blitz. SMRR holds a majority of seats on the City Council and all the boards that oppose T, and that Council and those boards employ the classroom police and firefighters, as well appointing members of the city commissions. In that light, the alleged unanimity is merely obedience.

The narrative ends on what Abdo and O’Day see as a positive note:
“Santa Monica can and will address the challenges of controlling development and reducing traffic congestion without the severe harm threatened by T.”

City Hall has overseen the construction of over 9 million square feet of new commercial development since 1980 in this eight square mile beach town. According to its own numbers, the daily transient population of Santa Monica is now300,000, which makes it the most densely populated city in America. The City has been promising to “fix” traffic since 1996, but it gets worse every year. Further, the makers of Prop T and other residents repeatedly asked the City to take steps to control growth, and were ignored or rebuffed. Prop T was a last resort.

The City Hall/SMRR/Chamber axis wrote residents out of the script some time ago.

On November 4, residents can return the favor by voting for Prop T and against incumbent Council members Richard Bloom, Ken Genser and Herb Katz for betraying the residents they were supposed to represent, and then getting on with the preservation and refinement of this glorious, but currently beleaguered beach town we inhabit.