Santa Monica’s Myers Grapples With City Problems and a Social Conscience

The weather was cold and the sky was a misty gray as Santa Monica City Atty. Robert M. Myers embarked on his daily six-mile run last week. Zipping up his jogging jacket, he headed west to Ocean Avenue, negotiating several signals and crosswalks before turning north into Palisades Park.

His pace quickened when he reached the park and as he dodged mud puddles and maneuvered around towering palm trees, Myers could not help but notice the homeless people huddled on benches, wrapped in dirty blankets and wandering in search of handouts from the regular park visitors.

Won’t Prosecute Homeless

Such scenes have become strikingly familiar in Palisades Park and other Santa Monica locations. And some city officials have said that Myers, who has consistently refused to prosecute the nonviolent homeless, is partly to blame for the problem in Santa Monica. But their criticism has not weakened Myers’ resolve to seek social remedies in place of prosecution.

“I spend a lot of time running through the park and seeing what’s going on,” Myers said recently. “And when I see many of these people I feel a sense of helplessness. . . . In a land with adequate resources for most of its citizens, it’s one of the great injustices to see people in this condition.”

Myers’ viewpoint may incense people who are routinely hit up for quarters when they are out for a walk. But the 34-year-old city attorney, who has been called brilliant by even his worst enemies, contends that his dogmatic stand is morally and legally defensible. He took a similar stand several years ago when he authored the city’s rent control law on behalf of low-income tenants facing skyrocketing rents.

Myers has been under fire in past months from council members who say he is not doing enough to solve Santa Monica’s problems with the homeless. Councilman David G. Epstein, speaking last month at a workshop on the homeless, accused Myers of failing to do his job. And Councilman William H. Jennings called for an audit of Myers’ office a few weeks ago, saying Myers was slow to process city business and generally uncooperative. Jennings later withdrew his request.

But Myers’ supporters argue that criticism of the city attorney has more to do with politics than the homeless question. They say he is caught in the cross fire between the city’s two political factions--Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the liberal organization that supported his appointment when its members held the council majority in 1981, and the moderate All Santa Monica Coalition, whose members have criticized Myers since they gained the majority in City Hall last year.

‘Outlandishly Inappropriate’

“Any office as sensitive and complicated as the city attorney’s office is going to have a lot of critics and a lot of admirers,” said Councilman James P. Conn, a tenant activist who links attacks on Myers to attacks on rent control. “But these latest attacks have been outlandishly inappropriate.”

Myers’ critics deny that he is being attacked because of his ties to tenant activists. They say his intransigence on the homeless issue proves that the city attorney--who has often been called the eighth City Council member because of his outspokenness--is too independent.

“He’s a very good lawyer, but he’s also political,” said Jennings, a coalition member. “It’s not his position to decide whether he’ll enforce the laws we pass. Only seven of us set policy.”

“Bob is brilliant and he’s dedicated to what he thinks is right,” Epstein said. “But he sometimes forgets that he’s no longer a Legal Aid lawyer, where your job is to be a vigorous advocate for the poor. When you’re city attorney, your client is the City Council.”

Jennings and Epstein have stopped short of suggesting that Myers be fired. One reason, they say, is the fear that tenant activists would try to portray Myers as a martyr for rent control in the 1986 election. Council members have also said that Jennings and Epstein probably don’t have the five votes needed to remove him from office.

“I think there are other people who could do the job. It’s not like he’s the only one,” Jennings said. “But nobody on the council wants to go through the election fighting the argument that we fired the father of rent control.”

Declined Comment

Until recently, Myers has been tight-lipped in the face of criticism from Jennings and Epstein.

But in a wide-ranging interview with The Times last week, Myers predicted that he and his critics will reach a compromise on the homeless. He downplayed the significance of the recent criticism and said he enjoys his job.

“I believe that the type of work I’m doing is an important contribution to the public interest,” Myers said. “As long as I feel that way I’ll continue to work here . . . though ultimately the measure of a city attorney’s performance is the satisfaction of the City Council that appoints him.”

With that in mind, Myers is moving to rebut charges that his office is slow in returning legal drafts and other documents. Statistics released by Myers last week show that 90% of the projects assigned to his office are completed within 30 days, and 50% are completed within two days.

Myers also noted that his office--which includes a staff of about 20 attorneys assigned to civil advisory, civil litigation and criminal divisions--has been asked to render 119 opinions this year, a large number for a city the size of Santa Monica. Still, Myers conceded that there is room for improvement.

“Every day that I spend on the job as city attorney I get better,’ Myers said. “But there are some problems, and one is that some projects take longer than I would like. . . . But that’s the exception rather than the rule. We have thousands of projects coming through here each year and we handle them in a timely fashion. . . . Things are done very quickly around here.”

What isn’t coming very quickly is a solution to homelessness, a nationwide problem that has surfaced in Santa Monica.

Grim Determination

If Myers had his way, the government would provide more shelters and better medical service for the more than 1,000 homeless people in Santa Monica. But that is not likely, so Myers lumbers through City Hall grimly determined to find another solution to the homeless issue.

“I wish he’d prosecute the panhandlers and other people,” said Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane. “I’m arresting them and Bob’s not prosecuting them. But he’s a humanitarian with a capital H.”

Myers’ principles seem closely tied to his upbringing. A devout Catholic, he was born in Pasadena to middle-class parents. When he was 4, the family moved to La Habra and Robert Michael Myers, who remembers his family being involved in volunteer work with the poor, became an altar boy when he was old enough.

Myers graduated from St. Paul High School in La Habra and and received a bachelor’s degree in political science from California State University, Fullerton. He then attended Loyola School of Law, graduating summa cum laude and second in his class. One of his classmates and friends was Ronald Collins, a Washington attorney who recalled that Myers filed his first suit while he was still in school. Myers was recycling aluminum cans one day when a particular brand of beer can was rejected because it was not aluminum, as the label stated. Myers challenged the major brewer and settled out of court, Collins said.

Chose Legal Aid

As editor-in-chief of the school’s law review, Myers was well positioned for a job with a prestigious private law firm. But upon graduation in 1975, he chose to work for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles County, explaining that he had no interest in practicing law for “private economic reasons.” Based in Venice, Myers earned a reputation as a tough and intelligent public-interest lawyer specializing in housing issues, according to co-worker Collins.

“Many of these Legal Aid types have a lot of heart, but they don’t have the mind to go with it,” Collins said. “Bob said we had a mission. Someone would work on something for a week and he’d say, ‘This isn’t right. Go back and do it again.’ You don’t win friends that way. You win cases that way.”

Two years into his work with Legal Aid, a Santa Monica tenant named Sid Rose asked Myers’ help in writing a rent control law that would protect tenants against rapidly rising rents and sweeping condominium conversions. Myers subsequently authored a law that gained national attention. When the law passed overwhelmingly in 1979, Myers became known as the “father of rent control” in Santa Monica.

The National Law Journal, a weekly publication for lawyers, called Myers’ document, which stopped demolitions and conversions and prevented landlords from raising rents on new tenants, “as central to the change (in Santa Monica) as Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.”

But Myers didn’t exactly fit the radical mold when it came to his voting record. A registered Republican, he had voted for Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and Gerald R. Ford in 1976. Asked if his politics were inconsistent, Myers said that he viewed himself and the rent control law as moderate. And that was good enough for the Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights leadership, which appointed him city attorney when it gained the majority of the council seats in 1981.

Controversial Employee

In Myers, the city gained a natural defender of the rent control law, which was facing a flood of lawsuits. But it also got a controversial employee with a unique ability to confound, amuse and infuriate friends and colleagues.

Myers received early publicity for refusing to accept the $50,000-a-year city attorney’s salary, taking $40,000 a year instead. He has declined to discuss the specifics, but does not deny that he requested the pay cut. He accepted a $10,000 raise at the council’s suggestion after six months in office and has accepted other raises since then. He now earns $69,000 a year. Myers also turned down a city car and a mileage allowance, saying he did not believe in such perks.

As city attorney, Myers is in constant contact with the city’s department heads. And he quickly became known as the kind of guy people loved or hated. Few colleagues were indifferent.

“Bob has a strong personality and he’s a strong arguer,” said John Alschuler Jr., the former city manager. “If you like to argue and think things through . . . then Bob’s a lot of fun to work with. It’s not always smooth, but I found that the bumps along the way made the work better.”

Others contend, however, that Myers’ stridency is damaging. None of his current colleagues would talk on the record, but stories about Myers’ so-called temper tantrums and lack of “team spirit” are legion. “God help you if you call him after a week or two and ask if he’s done with something,” said one associate.

“If you’re five minutes late for a meeting he leaves,” said another. “It’s a serious problem for the city and it makes everyone’s life that much more difficult. Being a good lawyer only goes so far.”

Myers shrugs off the criticism. “I think from time to time that all of us who work at City Hall are difficult to deal with,” Myers said. “I think I’m probably one of the most flexible people around.”

Strong Record

On paper, Myers has scored some impressive victories. He and his staff have won 87% of their cases at the appellate court level, many of them major rent control verdicts. The office also has a strong record in defending the city against financial claims. In 1984, plaintiffs demanded nearly $38 million in the 487 claims and 108 lawsuits. The city paid out about $500,000, according to Yvonne Binstock, chief deputy for civil litigation.

Chief Keane called Myers “a hell of a city attorney” when it comes to prosecuting people for drunk driving and other alleged criminal violations. (Myers’ office prosecutes about 10,000 criminal cases a year.) Keane said he and Myers have never disagreed except when it comes to the homeless.

Councilman Dennis Zane, a tenant activist, said Myers is a “tough task master” whose work is “nothing short of phenomenal.” But others say that he works too long and hard on documents that should be quickly completed.

Myers said he does not have the time or manpower to be a perfectionist, as some have labeled him. But the father of 6-year-old twins does follow a rigid schedule. He rises about 6 a.m. and is in the office by 7 a.m. His workday ends about 13 hours later.

His leisure time is devoted to family activities, volunteer work and exercising. Myers has shed about 40 pounds since he started running a few years ago. He frequently competes in races, including marathons, and recently completed a 200-mile bicycle ride in one day. He also occasionally chops vegetables at a Skid Row mission.

“He’s not real different in private life than he is in public life,” said his wife, Linda Sullivan. “He doesn’t like social conversation and he doesn’t chitchat. All of our conversations are serious.”

Monotone Voice

Others remark that conversations with Myers usually are punctuated by long silences broken only by the sound of his breathing. And people who attend council meetings may best recognize Myers as the person with the monotone voice who sits bent over his desk with his hand on his chin in a position reminiscent of Rodin’s “The Thinker.”

People familiar with the legal profession say that Myers could easily double or triple his salary by joining a private firm. Others say they doubt he would ever leave public interest law. Still others say that he ultimately desires a judgeship. Myers said he’s taking it one day at a time.

“One has to concentrate on today because the future is always uncertain,” Myers said. “I have no master game plan for what I’ll be doing in the next year, much less 10 years from now. But I’m quite happy with what I’m doing.”