The Landmarks Commission’s decision this week to designate Chez Jay’s, the quintessential Santa Monica bar, a landmark, and City Hall’s open disdain for it perfectly demonstrate the profound disagreement over the future of Santa Monica that has got the town in a roil three weeks before the election.

Chez Jay’s is the ideal Santa Monica hangout. It’s across the street from the beach, small, unpretentious, relaxed, low key. The drinks are strong, the food is simple but very good.

In its five decades, its regulars have ranged from Sinatra, Astaire, and Garland, Eastwood and Belushi to Rene Zellwegger, Kiefer Sutherland and several generations of beach bums, surfers and all manner of residents.

Not only did Henry Kissinger often reserve the famous table 10, but Daniel Ellsberg is said to have handed off the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times there.

Astronaut Alan Shepherd took a Chez Jay’s peanut shell to the moon for his pal Jay Fiondella, the actor and adventurer who created this fine small world.

Jay, one of a handful of people I’ve known who were genuinely genial and absolutely cool, didn’t set out to make a great restaurant, but thought merely to make a great party, and he did. He died a couple of years ago. His son and daughter, Anita Fiondella Eck and Chaz Fiondella. have carried on, with Jay’s partner, Michael Anderson.

The RAND Corporation owned the sliver of land occupied by Chez Jay’s, but it was part of the 8.6-acre parcel it sold to the City a while ago. At the time, Jay asked the City to promise that it would preserve Chez Jay’s. The City agreed. But it’s not very good at keeping its promises and it decided to build a $47 million park on six acres that includes Chez Jay’s.

At a City Council meeting in May, a City planner spoke disdainfully of Chez Jay’s. In effect, she said it would have to go, as it was incompatible with the park, and not up to City standards.

It should be, she said, a “pavilion-like structure allowing for the generous flow of activities from interior to exterior spaces… encouraging the use of verandas, patios and other intermediary space in the design of the restaurant…(and) complementary with the design and activity program for the park. The existing restaurant is oriented toward Ocean Avenue, with no outdoor seating areas or take-out food windows and nominal landscaping…Its current design does not match City Hall’s desired themes for the future park…excellent architectural merit in keeping with the Civic Center Specific Plan design parameters, casual dining, preferably with food service to be available throughout the day, in a facility that provides a unique aesthetic and ambiance that relates to the (park) experience by providing outdoor dining and visitor-serving amenities…In terms of size, the restaurant should have a maximum floor area of 15,000 square feet and a maximum footprint of 10,000 square feet. The building’s height would be limited to two stories and 25 feet…”

For the record, Chez Jay’s is one room, with a bar along one wall, the famous table 10 in an alcove at the back of the room, peanut shells on the floor, and that is as it should be. It is not meant to complement a park – especially a park whose main feature is a $440,000 “fabrication” of 29 aluminum pipes. It is meant to complement its customers, and it has been doing that since it opened in 1959.

Santa Monica has plenty of shiny sleek restaurants. It has only one Chez Jay’s, and it has a splendid history, and that is why the Landmarks Commission made it a landmark. The Council can over-ride the designation, but given its own architectural record – the brutalist Public Safety Building, the folksy Ken Edwards Center, the horrifying Fourth Street parking structure, the Main Library, which looks like nothing so much as a branch of the l.A. County Jail — that’s just one more step in the wrong more direction. .

As the election approaches, the battle between City staff and their allies on the Council and aroused, alert, angry residents becomes more intense. At stake is the future of this gloriously idiosyncratic beach town. Will it evolve slowly, naturally and thoughtfully as residents are calling for or will the City’s incessant drive for more revenue, more development and more power prevail?

Anyone who’s been here for any length of time knows that City Hall and the developers don’t know, don’t care, can’t help or refuse to admit that every time they add another oversized, graceless, unneeded project to the townscape they diminish Santa Monica and betray its residents.

On November 6, we can end the battle for the soul of Santa Monica by voting for four Council candidates who will not take money from developers and will faithfully represent residents: Richard McKinnon, Ted Winterer, John C. Smith and Bob Seldon.