Revolt Against Galanter

I was a dedicated campaign volunteer for Galanter, and I am a former member of the Board of the Venice Town Council, the key community organization which helped send Galanter to the City Council. The growing revolt against Galanter, which I have joined, stems from her policy promoting indefinite expansion of commercial development in Venice.

The current pace of commercial growth spells disaster for our community since Venice is already over-impacted and over-utilized.

The crucial issue is: How much more commercial development can we take? Galanter adamantly refuses to address this question. Instead, she offers her Venice Interim Control Ordinance (ICO) as an appropriate remedy for the disaster she describes. Remarkably, the ICO does not address the core issue of our commercial growth capacity, and Galanter exempts most commercial projects from the ICO’s meager growth limitations. As The Times points out, Galanter’s approach is to use ICO restrictions as leverage to gain concessions from developers for low-income housing: Her “deals” allow developers to avoid the ICO in exchange for building a few low-income housing units.

The Venice Town Council has responded to this planning vacuum with a petition drive calling on Galanter to impose a 1-year moratorium on commercial development in Venice and a study to determine our commercial growth capacity.

Galanter, however, believes that moratoriums are “illegal.” She also complains that a moratorium on commercial development would result in the construction of luxury housing on undeveloped lots in Venice. While I am not an advocate of luxury housing, it certainly is preferable to more commercial development.

STEVE SCHLEIN

Venice