Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000173 EndHTML:0000017621 StartFragment:0000002367 EndFragment:0000017585 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/peggyclifford/Documents/imporemce

The October 27  City Council meeting offered further proof, if any were needed,  that the divide between City Hall and Santa Monica residents is very real and very wide.

There were two  major questions on the agenda.  The Council devoted hours  to a question that had only one possible answer, and gave barely a wink and  a nod to a far nore  complex question.

The first  question:  should Santa Monica ban the declawing of cats? The only answer: of course,  it should. Declawing is cruel, painful, barbaric. It maims the cat  and cripples him  permanently. The real  question is why it wasn’t banned years ago.

Several dozen people spoke, including a number of  veterinarians, Most of  the speakers plumped for the ban.

But, then, inexplicably, Council  members rattled on and on,   adding neither light nor heat to the discussion.

Council member Richard Bloom opposed the ban, and actually read   a prepared statement. But when the “policy nakers” finally ran out of  very small talk, and voted, it was 6-1 for the ban. `

The Council then moved on to the  next question.

In its continuing effort to give Expo light rail officials what they want, though what  they want is opposed by many residents and violates basic land use policies, the  staff  presented another variation on the theme of “mitigating” the problems with  the proposed Expo maintenance yard.

,

Following the staff report, fewer than a dozen residents spoke, but one of them, Catherine Eldridge, made the smartest and most pertinent statement that we’ve heard in Council chambers in months. (see “More at Stake,” below).

When the last resident had spoken,

It was the Council’s turn. The ensuing silence was anything but golden.

Like the host of a terrible party,  Mayor Ken Genser finally broke the silence with his trademark opening, “I have a couple questions…”

All  the Council members spoke then, but no one said anything

useful.

Council meetings were once lively   forums, in which  residents actively  participated. Now, as happened at the October 27 meeting, general questions — – cat declawing, bikers’ rights and so on  — attract many people, including non-residents,  and key local questions – such as  land use policies – draw  only the most  stalwart residents.

This is not to say that non- residents  aren’t  welcome and general questions are of no interest here.   It is to say that most residents, having been reduced to  extras in this civic drama,  have, in effect, given up.

s

Lord Acton famously said, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Santa Monicans for Remitters’ Rights(SMRR) has held the majority of Council seats for more than  20 years.

They began as our elected representatives, but they  tired of that role, and, with the encouragement of the staff, recast  themselves as “policy makers.”

But, as it turns out, they aen’t any better at policy than they were  at democracy.

Among their recent policy triumphs are the traffic crisis, the parking nightmare, the continuing decline in existing rental housing stock, the diminution of public review of proposed projects, the increasing use of development agreements, the thoroughly embarrassing effort to turn this legendary beach town into a” product,” and the disastrous revision of the land use and circulation elements of the General Plan (LUCE).

In a town of diverse, bright, sophisticated, articulate and very independent residents.   20 years is a long time for one viewpoint to dominate – especially a viewpoint that has been principally informed by City Hall staff and adjusted to maintain SMRR’s political edge.

Unfortunately, the SMRRs’  political needs are often at odds with the community’s needs.

70 percemt of Santa Monica residents are renters. By any measure, they are integral to Santa Monica, our friends and neighbors, and indispensable. But they make too much money to qualify for “affordable housimg,” and not enough money to buy the “luxury condos” that City Hall has such affection for.

The SMRR Council members go all warm and fuzzy at the very mention of ‘affordable housing,” but have spent very little time

and less money on the preservation of existing rental housing.

The LUCE revision will have a major impact on the shape and direction of Santa Monica in the

next couple of decades, but —– unless they’ve violated the Brown Act – the SMRR Council members have  contributed very little to the process.

But if  the SMRRs have made so  many major mistakes, why do they keep winning elections?

They’ve been around for 30 years.  Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights is the perfect moniker in a town full of  renters. They are seen as liberals in a town full of liberals. They’ve built a very slick  campaign organization, and, in  City Hall lingo, a steady revenue stream.

No question. The SMRRs know how to win elections. Unfortunately, though they’ve been at it for  20  years, they have no idea how to govern.

They talk more than they listen, and they listen more to staff and their consultants than to their constituents, and they have overseen the reduction of residents’ participation in the project review

process.

But if the SMRR Council members have been  and are vastly imperfect leaders, and Lord knows they are, residents, with few exceptions, have been vastly imperfect citizens, preferring to sulk in the shadows   rather than fighting the LUCE-ites.

As it turns out, absolute impotence corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

The draft LUCE will be presented to the Council on November 27. Read it. It’s a bad plan. Go to the meeting.  Speak up. Demand changes.