TO: SOME COUNCIL CANDIDATES

Having learned from our past experiences with our candidates forum, dubbed Squirm Night, the Daily Press has decided that the residents of Santa Monica will benefit from a more thorough examination of candidates than we have been able to provide in the past because of the large number of candidates running and the limited amount of time available to vet them. As such, we have put a limitation on the number of candidates who are invited to this year’s forum. We are sorry to say that you are not among them.

We based our decision on several factors, including whether or not you secured at least 5 percent of the vote in the last election you participated in, raised more than $1,000 through donations or loans, if you returned our questionnaire and if you secured endorsements from credible organizations in the community.

If you have any questions regarding our decision, contact me. Good luck with the campaign.
Kevin Herrera, Editor in Chief, Santa Monica Daily Press

Dear Fellow Candidates:
We should all stand together and boycott. Is attending this forum more important than opposing censorship and discrimination. Is attending more important than standing up for the less well heeled, the poor, lesser known and less connected Candidates? Is this how we as City Council Members going to react when faced with hard decisions in City Council. Are we going to buckle to the Developers if they threaten us. We need to send a clear message that this City Council will not be the same City Council who has represented the will of the Developers. This is just a Forum, how are you individually and collectively going to respond when, some of us, who may sit in the Council chair and have to make truly hard decisions that involve the people who we represent? If we do not have a spine now what makes you think you will have it when we have to make the hard choices. I for one am boycotting “Squirm Night” if all of us are not invited. Just like I boycotted the Airport Forum because the public was excluded.

As important as being elected to the City Council is to me, it is far more important for me to show loyalty and solidarity no matter what the cost may be.
Roberto Gomez Candidate for City Council Save Village Trailer Park
www.StopCityDestroyingHousing.com

Dear Kevin,

I don’t understand this. I’ve raised over $1000. I’m endorsed by the Dispatch, I do not recall receiving a questionnaire from the SMDP, although I definitely responded to it if I did receive it. I have been getting incredibly positive feedback from the residents as I campaign. So what’s REALLY up?

More to the point, I do not think you can validly impose sudden “rules of eligibility” this late in the campaign cycle and exclude candidates that could have focused their campaigns differently if they knew these criteria in advance. Given that this is a public event, on public property and involves political speech, I question the legality of the SMDP doing this.

Please reconsider. Squirm Night has become a very important event and should not be mis-used or tarnished. I am confident you will respond favorably to this request once you reconsider, and look forward to receiving your response by noon today.

Bob Seldon

Editor in Chief, Santa Monica Daily Press
In response to your exclusion of specific candidates from your Squirm Forum:

I am deeply disappointed in your decision that the “residents of Santa Monica will benefit from . . . ” your decision to exclude certain candidates based on your criteria which was not previously disclosed and seems unfair. The Santa Monica Daily Press, although a private newspaper, has an ethical (and arguably legal) duty to invite all of the candidates which appear on the ballot to participate at a Santa Monica Daily Press hosted and Sponsored “Forum.” Each candidate on the ballot has been duly nominated by the Citizens of Santa Monica as a qualified candidate and only the inclusion of all candidates would benefit the residents of Santa Monica – not their exclusion.

I am not an attorney, but here is some food for thought…I understand that the Santa Monica Daily Press has editorial first amendment rights; however, I would strongly argue that your decision to host and sponsor and specifically invite a limited number of candidates (while excluding others) to a public “forum” would be considered as In-Kind Campaign Contributions being made by your organization to these specifically invited candidates. This would entail that the In-Kind Campaign contribution would be limited to $325 per candidate for this forum per Santa Monica law. I do not know exactly what your actual costs and the market value that each invited candidate will receive from your sponsored forum, however there is a straight-faced argument to be made that this In-Kind Campaign Contribution will be in excess of the Campaign Finance limitations of $325 per candidate.

Of course determination of the actual market value of these In-Kind Campaign Contributions is outside the scope at the present time, I would argue that your actions leave your organization open to a review of your books and accounting to determine whether there is in fact a violation of Campaign Contribution limits.

I apologize for my run on sentences, however I am sure you get the gist. I would have liked to spend more time in drafting a more eloquent response however I need to spend time right now preparing for the Santa Monica Mirror Candidate Forum which is being held this evening wherein ALL CANDIDATES WERE INVITED.

I hope you will reconsider. Chow!
Armen Melkonians, Candidate for Santa Monica City Council

Editor in Chief, Santa Monica Daily Press
ross@smdp:Santa Monica Daily Press
This responds to the e-mail copied below from Gregg Heacock of Mid City Neighbors stating Squirm Night will not include all the candidates for City Council. It also concerns the format of the two candidates’ nights in general.

First, no candidate should be excluded. It is bad enough that over $100,000 in developers’ money is being used to send out support mailings for developers’ friends Gleam Davis, Terry O’Day, and Sherri Davis (with Ted Winterer, who, like Kevin McKeown, is not a developer lapdog, tacked on to make them not look so bad). To then not let people who did not have big money backing them appear at a public meeting advertised to be for all the candidates is unconscionable.

As to the general format, everyone who is slated to be able to ask questions has a conflict of interest because the organizations involved all benefit from money of the City and/or developers (but I repeat myself there). All the neighborhood organizations, as active as they may be, are funded in part by the City. All the newspapers in town get ads from developers and legal notices/ads posted by the City. There is no independent voice represented in any candidates’ night that involves only newspapers and neighborhood organizations.

Therefore, since there is no candidates’ night where the actual public—not funded at all by City/developer money—is allowed to speak, I will be asking the candidates who wants to attend a truly open candidates’ night where the actual public asks about what the actual public cares about.

These will be questions we somehow never see in any of the newspapers and the neighborhood associations never get down to the nitty-gritty about. Like why are all the Expo transit stations planned to be south of Wilshire, when there isn’t even a bike path through North of Montana between 11th and 26th Streets? Why are our neighborhoods always the ones affected the worst by development? Like why are all the transit stations crossing streets at grade level, which means traffic will be interrupted 26 times an hour? Like why are the transit stations continuing to be built this way when the California Supreme Court took the case of SmartRail.org against Expo doing this in West LA?

I look forward to changes in the existing candidates’ nights considering the above.

Sincerely yours,
Brenda Barnes

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 4:04 PM, Gregg Heacock wrote:
October 10, 2012

Dear Friends and Members of Santa Monica Mid City Neighbors,
We have been informed that Kevin Herrera, Editor of the Santa Monica Daily Press, has decided to change the format of Squirm Night. He wrote to several candidates last night, telling them that they were no longer invited to share the stage with candidates he considered more worthy of receiving the public’s attention. The many neighborhood organizations that signed on as sponsors of this event, including our own, were never directly notified of this change. Many are already talking about dropping their sponsorship and some are actually discussing boycotting the event.

We have been told that any questions you have about Squirm Night and which candidates will be included should be directed to the Publisher Ross Furukawa by calling the newspaper’s main line–310-458-7737–and asking for Ross or by emailing him at Ross@smdp.com.

Gregg Heacock, President of Santa Monica Mid City Neighbors