Letters : Connections of a Candidate

In his letter in the Oct. 12 edition of The Times, Derek Shearer brought to light the financial connections of the All Santa Monica Coalition’s candidates for the City Council with developers, commercial property owners and real estate investors, many of whom have projects that will be up for consideration by the city in the near future.

What Derek Shearer didn’t point out was that development money is not only underwriting the Reed-Jennigs-Epstein campaign; the same special interests have appeared in the financial disclosure statement of Alan Katz, running for the two-year council seat as an independent.

Alan Katz has accepted contributions of $1,000 or more from Southmark Corp., developer of Colorado Place; Larry Cates, landlord of Santa Monica Shores, a bitter enemy of rent control; Dominion Property Co.; OK Maintenance, which owns numerous Ocean Park properties it hopes to develop.

Several other developers with interests in Main Street development and the Scratch Hotel have made substantial contributions: Flinkman Realty, Lawrence and Pat Barett, Russell Barnard, RE International Hotel Group.

Alan Katz has also received $1,000 from Chris Harding, one of the heads of the All Santa Monica Coalition, and a $1,000 loan from Marathon Communications, which is managing the Reed-Jennings-Epstein campaign.

Alan Katz cast the deciding vote when the Coalition fired Derek Shearer from his job as chairman of the Planning Commission. Without Katz’s participation in that middle-of-the-night travesty, Santa Monica would not have lost its staunchest advocate of neighborhood-responsive development.

Is it coincidental that the Coalition majority appointed Alan Katz to fill the council seat vacated by Ken Edwards’ death?

Alan Katz is about as “independent” as Chris Reed, Bill Jennings and David Epstein are.

DIANNE GLINOS

Santa Monica