Sensibility' Sought for SM City Hall

 

 

 

Businesses, residents form coalition to prioritize city issues

 

BY CAROLYN SACKARIASON

Daily Press Staff Writer

 

Frustrated Santa Monicans may know all too well the saying, “You can’t fight City Hall” but if enough fed-up residents unite their voices, local governments may have no choice but to listen.

That’s the hope of Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities, a newly-formed coalition that is recruiting a broad-based network of citizens who can force the city’s leadership to address long standing issues that have been met with minimal solutions over the past several years, organizers say.

With hundreds of members, the coalition is backed by big money from local business interests- including the hospitality industry- as well as residents. Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities’ primary focus right now is to establish the community’s key issues. The next task will be to find potential candidates who will run a campaign based on those issues. The coalition will then help get them elected in 2006 when three City Council seats will be open.

“The idea here is, what do people care about and why it’s not being addressed,” said Seth Jacobson, the coalition’s spokesman and whose public relations firm has been hired by the group. “By this time next year, we want a credible coalition of people who are willing to join together and impact the election.”

In the past few months, the coalition has spent more than $20,000 on phone surveys and mailers in an effort to find out what’s important to Santa Monicans and what’s frustrating them.

The results from the phone survey conducted this past spring found that homelessness was the top concern among the 300 residents polled. That came as no surprise to the group’s organizers since it’s been the top concern among residents in City Hall’s phone survey for the past fiver years. But what’s being done about it is one of the coalition’s primary concerns.

That’s why the group is planning to host a forum in July on the issue, with representatives participating from other cities, who have been able to successfully address homelessness, and as a result, reduce crime and improve the quality of life for residents.

“We want to take the top solutions and look at successful programs elsewhere and have them tell us what works and what doesn’t,” Jacobson said, adding he hopes the coalition can propose a policy to the City Council in August. “There needs to be a sensible solution that everyone can get around.”

The group spent $12,500 in March to send out a mailer to 40,000 residents, asking them to e-mail their war stories when they have had to deal with City Hall in the past. The mailer also detailed a few positions the group stands for, including the perceived problem of public drunkenness and the public costs of a recently-approved living wage for city employees. The mailer also questions whether or not the current leadership represents a force of change.

“We want to get city leadership to focus on the community’s priorities,” Jacobson said.

The coalition and a related group spent close to $300,000 campaigning for its candidates and issues for the 2004 election with some results. Now, the group’s members hope to show that it’s not just the self-interests of the business community that has concerns, but the citizenry at large.

“The more divisive route has been tried but it wasn’t issued based…something that they stand for and to show that they have the same priorities that everybody else has,” Jacobson said.

“He added that the movement is similar to what Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights (SMRR) did 20 years ago – it formed a broad base of community members to protect affordable rents. Today, SMRR still holds a political majority at City Hall, continuing to promote a social and liberal agenda.

“There has been one organized voice in Santa Monica and I think there are a lot of people who have a different point of view,” said Tim Dubois, president and CEO of the Edward Thomas Management Co., which owns Casa Del Mar and Shutters on the Beach, two local luxury hotels. Dubois is involved in the coalition and his company has financially backed the group’s past and current efforts because some of the key issues like the vagrant population and traffic congestion have negatively affected his business.

“The more points of view, the better off we will be but we have to be organized and I think that we can be even more organized,” he said. “Let’s take a new look at these same old problems that have been around for a number of years and help the elected leaders think outside the box.”

Both Dubois and Jacobson said they would rather see the coalition take a grassroots approach than a political one.

“I think it’s well intended and without a political emphasis,” Dubois said. “Certainly the goal is to have Santa Monica be a better place. It’s a goal nothing other than that.”

In the past several years, SMRR’s progressive agenda has been more rigorously challenged, partly by residents and partly by business interests.

“The population has shifted tremendously,” Jacobson said, adding Santa Monica has gotten more affluent and economically powerful in recent years.

Geoff Parcells, an 18-year resident who has four children, three of whom are in Santa Monica public schools, is frustrated by the lack of response he’s gotten by his city government when he complains about vagrants sleeping in his carport outside of his home north of Wilshire Boulevard.

“Why after 10 or 15 years have you not been able to solve this problem,” he said of city government. “They keep trying to solve this regionally. They need to solve it for Santa Monica, for the people who elected them.”

Parcells- who is not formally part of the coalition but supportive of it- said if enough people make the homeless issue a priority, they may force City Hall to adequately respond.

“I think before, you couldn’t fight City Hall but I think it’s a big enough issue now and if enough people organize, it can work,” he said. “Look, you know the squeaky wheel gets the oil.”

Whether or not the coalition can rally the community into an organized effort remains to be seen but if it can, politics will surely follow. With three open seats on the council in 2006- two of which are held by SMRR supporters- the coalition might be able to unseat the city’s most powerful political group for the majority of the past two decades.

“Maybe we’ll change things,” Jacobson said. “We have a year.”