Plato and Aristotle, Jefferson and Madison saw it as democracy’s great flaw. Jefferson said the tyranny of a legislative majority was as bad as the tyranny of a king.

Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) has held all or a majority of all local elective offices for more than two decades. On their seemingly endless watch, have the SMRRs advanced  their interests or Santa Monica’s? What are SMRR’s interests? Is what’s good for SMRR good for Santa Monica? Is Santa Monica a better town today  than it was in 1988, the year they took charge?
In the 2008 election, Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable  City (SMCLC) put Prop T on the ballot It would have limited new commercial growth. SMRR  launched an unprecedented assault on the measure.
City officials and SMRR Council members attacked it. The City unions opposed it, and SMRR collected  $740,000 from developers and landlords, and used it to smother Prop T in bogus claims that limiting commercial development would “devestate” our schools and threaten vital services because it would reduce an essential “revenue stream” to a trickle. It wasn’t true. The City’s own $100,000 analysis of the measure said its financial impacts, if any, couldn’t be calculated.

The residents had less than $100,000 to spend on their campaign. They lost: 14,170 to 17,978.

Terry O’Day, who led the anti-T assault, won a Council  appointment. Developers now have ten major commercial     projects in the works, including developments totaling two million sq. ft. that are nearing approval.  And  the SMRR Council approved an eleventh hour increase in height and density limits in the LUCE, which will accelerate the new commercial building binge.

The November 2 election looks a lot like 2008, amplified by the schools’ continuing financial crisis,  and the developers’ need to maintain their Council majority. Specifically, the City is asking voters to approve Prop Y, a 1/2 % increase in the sales/”transaction and use tax” that  would increase annual City revenue by $12 million. The current budget is  $500.000,000. But, without that extra $12 million, the City claims it may not be able to sustain such vital services as fire fighters, police, EMTs, and so on, much less give the schools the financial aid they need.

Vital services should be a top priority in any budget, immune to budget vagaries and political manipulation.

Officials — elected or appointed — who claim vital services will be cut unless we add another $12 million to our half-billion dollar budget are either incompetents or fear mongers or both — and should be replaced immediately.

Shortly before the Y ballot measure was announced, the   City paid $45 million for a 52,000 sq. ft. parcel that will be used for a holiday skating rink for the next four years. Surely, with vital services in jeopardy and the schools in  crisis, the City could do without the skating rink.

Also on the ballot ts YY, an “advisory” that asks voters whether they think the City should assign some of  Y revenue to the schools — though the City is not required to pay any attention to what we say.  But, of course, Y and YY aren’t really about a proposed tax. They’re on the ballot to attract voters who  want the measures and are thus bound to endorse, campaign and vote for the entire SMRR ticket, ensuring the perpetuation of  the SMRR majority and the developers’ reign.

Despite their two-plus decades on the dias, the SMRRs aren’t very good at governing the City, but they’re brilliant at rigging elections.

Ironically, Santa Monica’s long-running majority is the offspring of SMRR, the town’s only political party, which is run by a minority, the steering committee. SMRR claims it has “thousands” of members. As a rule, fewer than 300 people attend their conventions. In 2008 and again this year, the “steering committee” had the last word. This year, when members voted against endorsing incumbents Council woman Pam O’Connor and School Board members Oscar de la Torre and Ralph Mechur for re-election, the committee over-ruled the members and endorsed the trio.

The steering committee itself is not elected, but annointed, as SMRR is structurally more corporate than democratic, which may be why the SMRR majority sees this beach town as a business, a product rather than home to 86,000 people.

The major accomplishments of the SMRR majority are: rent control; the Farmers’ Market; 11 million sq. ft. of new commercial development and more on the way; double the number of City employees; loss of local businesses and services; loss of  open space; traffic congestion verging on gridlock; the attempt to reduce this gloriously idiosyncratic beach town to a “tourist destination” and “regional commercial hub.”
SMRR Council candidates are now claiming that accelerated commercial development will save the schools.

Clearly, the need for a Council that fully and faithfully represents residents, all of them, should be voters’ first priority on November 2.  At the moment, there are only two independent members of the Council — Mayor Bobby Shriver and Bob Holbrook. Their only allegience is to the people of Santa Monica and the town we love.  The other five members are all SMRRs.

Of the five,  only Kevin McKeown occasionally breaks ranks, usually on growth questions.  Residents who want to declare their independence should vote for Susan Hartley, an independent, two-year term, Bob Holbrook, an independent, Ted Winterer, endorsed by SMRR, but co-author of Prop T, and McKeown. SMRR will still have a majority of four, but, based on their records, Winterer and/or McKeown are apt to vote with the indepentes on the crucial issues. As significantly, the “of. by and for the people” principle that has been absent from City Hall  for too long will be revived.

Please vote for the iconic beach town we love and the Council candidates who will serve it and us fully and faithfully.    Everything is at stake.