After Months of Criticism, Councilwoman Wins a Victory

Six months after her debut on the Santa Monica City Council, Judy Abdo has scored her first notable political victory. But the road to success has been a stormy one.

Abdo, reeling from an unusually bitter barrage of public attacks, managed to unite the city’s diverse political factions behind an emergency moratorium on commercial development. The 10 1/2-month ban received unanimous council approval last week, after Abdo spent more than a month lobbying her colleagues.

But even Abdo, a veteran community activist, recognizes a secondary purpose in her sponsorship of the moratorium. She hopes the move will also show her critics that she is serious about resisting development.

And those critics have been out in full force. Not since Santa Monica’s tumultuous days of the early ‘80s, say some local observers, has there been such a public outpouring of harsh sentiment targeting a specific official.

Vocal Critics

On several occasions, local activists--some members of Abdo’s own political faction--have risen in crowded City Council chambers to challenge her trustworthiness, her ethics, her real commitment to the slow-growth movement. Questions of potential conflict of interest have reached the city attorney’s office or been debated in the local press.

Abdo, who favors a style of low-profile conciliation and compromise, says she is dismayed by the criticism.

“It is very painful to sit up there and have people attack you,” she said in a recent interview. “It’s the sort of thing I thought might happen in the election--sometimes campaigns get ugly--but not after I became an elected official.”

In many ways, the controversy around Abdo, 45, reflects growing pains and divisions within the political faction she represents, Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the dominant force in city politics for nearly a decade. At the same time, the controversy underscores the tensions within the slow-growth movement itself.

Many Santa Monica residents are increasingly alarmed over a recent onslaught of development, and some see the only solution as an absolute halt to new building. Within Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, this faction has become increasingly vocal.

But Abdo, before proposing the moratorium, voted in favor of a handful of projects. Although other council members have voted in similar fashion, Abdo stands accused of having betrayed the slow-growth platform that she was elected on and expected to champion.

“It’s a bum rap,” Mayor Dennis Zane, a fellow member of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, said in defending Abdo. Zane, after listening to several rounds of Abdo-bashing, came to Abdo’s defense at a recent council meeting, admonishing residents against using City Hall as a forum for personal attacks.

Bridge Differences

“Her leadership in initiating the moratorium,” Zane said, “is strong evidence that Judy’s philosophical concerns are very in sync with the concerns of a community worried about traffic and over-development.”

Abdo may also be perceived as a swing vote on the seven-member council, which tends to be divided into two camps--one more receptive to development than the other. Such a position inevitably puts added responsibility and pressure on the person who holds it, making the council member an ad hoc arbiter on divisive issues.

Most often, however, Abdo says she prefers to talk and work with rival political elements to bridge differences and reach consensus. Although this approach is praised by her supporters, it alienates many of the city’s hard-line slow-growth advocates.

“She was elected by people from (Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights), and we were expecting her to observe what is best for all the people, not just her developer friends,” said Sylvia Schniad, vice president of the Mid-City Neighbors organization, who was one of the Abdo foes to speak out at a recent council meeting.

Abdo’s critics focus on three of her recent votes:

On April 5, Abdo sided with a minority to vote in favor of a parking garage for Main Street. The structure had been approved by the City Council last year, but residents and merchants marshaled enough opposition to force the council to reverse itself. Only Abdo and Councilwoman Christine Reed, a moderate seen as pro-business, voted for the garage.

Abdo said she considered the garage part of an earlier Main Street plan that was agreed to by community and business leaders and as such had to be upheld.

On April 11, Abdo voted to let stand a Planning Commission approval of a four-story office building on Santa Monica Boulevard, despite protests from residents near the site. On this item, Abdo deserted her fellow members of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, casting her vote with council members who are considered part of the more moderate rival coalition.

On April 18, Abdo also voted to let stand a Planning Commission approval of a 68-room hotel for Santa Monica Boulevard, again over opposition from the neighbors. This time, two members of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Mayor Zane and Councilman David Finkel, joined Abdo.

Both the hotel and the office building went to the council as appeals of Planning Commission decisions. Abdo said she voted the way she did because she believes generally in affirming Planning Commission decisions unless substantial new information comes to light or it becomes clear the commission made a “serious mistake.”

Developers’ Support

Abdo’s critics charge that she favored these projects because they are supported by developers or architects who have contributed money to her election campaign.

Like most serious candidates for City Council, Abdo received part of her financial backing from developers who work in Santa Monica. But she denies the contributions influenced her votes.

“I’ve never been a pro-development person,” Abdo said. “In all the time I’ve been active in Santa Monica, I’ve fought development, I’ve fought for the community. People forgot that part of my background. The minute I voted for a couple of projects, I got labeled pro-development.”

Another controversy erupted when it was reported that during a visit to New York, Abdo stayed at the apartment of former Santa Monica City Manager John Alschuler. Alschuler now represents the developer of a much-disputed proposed office complex at Santa Monica Airport.

Abdo defended her actions, pointing out that Alschuler was a longtime friend and that no city business was discussed during her stay with him, his wife and their new baby.

Legal experts, while not passing judgment on the wisdom of Abdo’s decision to visit the Alschuler family, said it does not appear to violate any law.

Abdo’s explanations and the vigorous defense that many of her supporters offer do little to assuage the passion of her critics.

“This isn’t . . . a personal vendetta,” said Sharon Jaquith, a Sea Colony resident who has asked Abdo to abstain on votes that involved projects where she knew the developer.

“I just think that not only Judy Abdo but every council member should represent the thinking of the majority of the people in this city on citywide issues--regardless of relationships and regardless of how they personally feel on an issue.”

Similar Experience

The difficulties plaguing Abdo are reminiscent of the troubles faced by former Mayor James Conn, also a member of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights. Like Abdo, Conn was seen as a swing vote, a politician more likely to negotiate and compromise than follow a rigid ideological line.

Conn, who is also a Methodist minister at the Church in Ocean Park, retired from public office last year. His critics blamed him for much of the development under way in Santa Monica. But rarely was he attacked as publicly as Abdo has been attacked.

“In some ways Judy is getting a backlash that has as much to do with Jim (Conn) as with her,” said Ocean Park activist Geraldine Moyle, an outspoken critic of Abdo and Conn. People didn’t “go after” Conn with quite the same zeal, she said, because they knew he would be leaving office.

“With Judy, it’s a new councilmanic tenure,” Moyle said, “and we felt we should go on record early, challenging Judy to be clean ethically, warning her she would be scrutinized.”

Moyle co-signed a letter late last year suggesting that Abdo had a conflict of interest because she is a salaried administrator of Conn’s church, which has received thousands of dollars in donations from developers over the last few years.

In response to the letter, which was mailed to local newspapers, Abdo asked City Atty. Robert M. Myers to determine whether she had a conflict. He ruled she did not.

In addition to working for the church, where she occasionally preaches on Sunday, Abdo works as deputy to West Hollywood City Councilwoman Helen Albert. When she was elected to the Santa Monica City Council, Abdo began a job-sharing arrangement whereby she spends two days a week at the church and three days a week in West Hollywood.

Surprising Finish

Abdo’s election last November was her first attempt at public office, and her strong showing in the at-large race surprised many. She finished a scant 645 votes (half a percentage point) behind veteran incumbent Zane, with the other incumbent in the race, Herb Katz, finishing in first place. In all, four people were elected.

Well-known in activist circles, such as the Ocean Park Community Organization, Abdo, who is a lesbian, also became one of Southern California’s very few openly gay elected officials, a milestone she calls exciting. Two West Hollywood city councilmen and the mayor of Laguna Beach are among the others.

Like several other Westside officials, Abdo has embraced choice liberal causes, such as fasting in support of farm-labor organizer Cesar Chavez and protesting at a nuclear test site in Nevada, where she has been arrested three times.