In this spring of our discontent, City Hall has cranked up its efforts to subdue this gloriously idiosyncratic beach town.

City officials and their omnipresent consultants see Santa Monica as a means to an end, a money mill that is infinitely malleable, adjustable, susceptible to “the latest thing,” less a town than a promotional device whose sole purpose is to make money–a product.

Residents generally see it differently, see it as home — as much an effect and reflection of the ocean as the sand and tides, the oceanic air and high lucid light as the creation of 5 generations of geniuses, fools, rogues, Babbits, and ordinary folk.

Residents who cherish Santa Monica because it’s beautiful, grandly goofy find themselves in a philosophical and aesthetic tug of war with City Hall, which has managed to win the last several rounds because the majority of our alleged representatives persistently misrepresent us.

We’re only four months into ’12 and already the City has presented us with a 700,000 square foot commercial development in the Bergamot area and 17 other major developments, ever-spreading traffic gridlock, a Bergamot Station remodel that will inevitably destroy one of the City’s coolest and most authentic assets, two new hotels of transcendently mediocre design, the diminution of one of our most elegant landmarks into a mega-blob of a hotel, the threatened destruction of the perfectly humane and historically significant Village Trailer Park, the planting of “the Village” in the Civic Center, which will combine affordable apartments with “luxury condos,” violate height limits and open the door to super size projects, and, of course, the Miramar “revitalization,” which requires demolishing virtually everything that’s there, and replacing it with what amounts to a 556,000-square-foot wall on the ocean front – for no good reason, except money.

But nowhere is the schism between what Santa Monica is and what City Hall wants it to be more visible, and more ominous, than in Staff’s disdain for Chez Jay’s.

Once upon a time, half a century ago, an actor, adventurer and very nice man, Jay Fiondella, opened Chez Jay’s, a restaurant with a bar, very informal, an assemblage in the best California mode – eccentric, original, wry, humorous, like Jay himself. He was a superb host, and Chez Jay’s was his living room – informal,simple, and true. The food was fine, the drinks were strong. Over time, it became a haunt for the famous as well as assorted beach bums because it did what it did perfectly.

Jay died several years ago, but before he died, he won a promise from the City that it would preserve Chez Jay’s. Since his death, his family has run it, but now City Attorney Marcia Moutrie has ruled that the City can’t make such promises.

Judging by the statements made by City officials in a story in Surf Santa Monica, the City can’t wait to be rid of it.

The story, under Jason Islas’s byline, begins on a sour note, “In a city that prides itself on its beach culture, one of the iconic structures from Santa Monica’s days as a carefree seaside getaway may no longer fit in…Chez Jay’s…could be completely remodeled or replaced under the 2005 Civic Center Specific Plan… (It) sits at the edge of the proposed Palisades Garden Walk, which promises a design that celebrates the beach city’s prosperity with welcoming open spaces and deliberately meandering pathways lined with carefully-selected foliage…”

WHAT? Are they insane, or merely terminally crass? How can the City celebrate its “prosperity” when a large number of residents hold vital jobs, but live at or below the poverty line?

Elsa Trujillo, a “senior development analyst” for the City, told Islas that Chez Jay’s “does not adhere to the standards of the (Civic Center) specific plan,”

In fact, the Plan itself does not adhere to the Plan. The original Civic Center Specific Plan was done in 1993, and its reason for being and principal feature was the largest commercial development in Santa Monica history. RAND claimed that the end of the Cold War would result in a severe drop in its revenue, and commerce was the answer. But, RAND’s revenue rose, and, after several years of fudging, it sold about 8 of its 13 acres to the City for $53 million. Not incidentally, RAND had bought all 13 acres from the City in 1951 for $250,000.

RAND then built its enormous bunker, which led to the first of a series of Civic Center Specific Plans revisions, one of which included Santa Monica Place, as the City kept messing with it.In addition to the new RAND building, it built the brutalist Public Safety HQ, and, later, the ugliest building in California, the Fourth Street Parking Structure.The County Courthouse got bigger. Pieces of streets came and went. Land was allocated to an early childhood center, but it has yet to be built. A soccer field was penciled in on one plan, but erased on the next. RAND’s three original buildings were demolished – even as the City planned a 40,000 square foot “City Services building,” which recently was reduced, in theory anyway, to a three-story addition to City Hall. “The 300+ unit Village,” now under construction, on which the Community Corp. is collaborating with The Related Companies, was popped into the Plan several years ago.

The $47,000,000 Palisades Garden Walk, now under construction, was added to complement the Metro light rail terminus, but the City’s latest rationale for it is, in Islas’s words “to revitalize the area south of the newly remodeled Santa Monica Place…

“But” Islas wrote, “the dimly lit space with wood-paneled walls and sawdust and peanut shells on the floor, doesn’t fit in with City officials’ views of a bright, new future for the area.

“As a result, the kitschy, nautical-themed bar will have to be redesigned to ‘compliment the park,’” according to Trujillo.

As part of the plan, she said, the City wants a restaurant that is “complementary with the design and activity program for the park,” including an outdoor dining place that will connect with the park, according to the Civic Center Specific Plan.

“The owners of Chez Jay’s will have to submit a proposal along with any others interested in the City-owned site, since the City is legally required to review all applicants.

“The design of all buildings within the district shall appear as pavilion-like structures that allow for a generous flow of activities from interior to exterior spaces, the plan states. The use of verandas, terraces, patios and other such intermediary spaces is encouraged.

“The current Chez Jay’s fits none of these criteria.”

Neither do any of the existing buildings in the Civic Center. In fact, they meet no criteria at all. Before the City began grinding out Civic Center Specific Plans to address its latest whim, the Civic Center was actually a civic center – the magnificent City Hall, the courthouse, the Civic Auditorium, the RAND buildings – set loosely on a wide green meadow that overlooked the ocean. Now it’s just another jam of buildings whose primary purpose is to hustle business for the merchants, who are the stars of the Santa Monica show.

Chez Jay’s is too good for them. It’s the real thing – an actual bistro in an actual beach town.