Broader Agenda for Renters Group : Election: Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights won’t field a full slate of candidates for the City Council race in November.

Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights and rent control, long the dominant organization and dominant issue in Santa Monica politics, will have to compete for voters’ attention in the Nov. 6 city election with issues of growth and homelessness.

The more complex political agenda was acknowledged, in effect, by the tenants’ organization known as SMRR at its endorsement convention last weekend. In a decision that its leaders said reflected new realities in the city, the organization decided to field a less than full slate of candidates in the November City Council elections.

And in another decision that reflected deep divisions within SMRR over a hotly disputed development issue, the group decided to remain neutral on a ballot measure dealing with the proposed Santa Monica Beach Hotel and Community Center. The City Council last week approved the project, to be built on a parcel of state-owned, city-managed beach property, but at the same time passed a ballot measure asking voters whether the approval should be repealed.

SMRR also decided at its Sunday convention, which attracted 250 members, to remain neutral on two competing ballot measures dealing with beachfront development.

Even though three City Council seats are up for election, SMRR gave its endorsement to just two candidates: Kelly Olsen, a renter who lives in the mid-city area and has been active in a slow-growth movement, and Tony Vasquez, a Sunset Park homeowner. Vasquez, who would be the first Latino to serve on the council if he wins, has been a leader of an effort to create a system of council districts to replace the city’s at-large system of representation.

Two of the incumbents whose terms are expiring are not seeking reelection. Councilman David Finkel is stepping down in order to run for municipal judge in Santa Monica. And William H. Jennings, a councilman since 1979, said this week that he has decided not to run again. Only four-term Councilwoman Christine Reed, a longtime foe of the renters’ rights group, is seeking reelection in November.

Some SMRR members expressed concern that the group, in deciding to back just two candidates, was in effect conceding reelection to Reed. SMRR leaders insisted that this is not the case, and said they hoped instead that homeowner groups that supported Reed in previous elections will put up a candidate to defeat her.

“Nobody in this room wants to defeat Chris Reed more than I do,” said Councilman Ken Genser, one of SMRR’s founding members, “but we can’t do it alone. We want them (the homeowner groups) to pick off Chris Reed for us.”

Mayor Dennis Zane, another SMRR founder, urged members to consider later endorsing a third candidate proposed by a new coalition of slow-growth advocates calling itself the Santa Monica Neighborhood Coalition. But the SMRR members decided two candidates were enough.

Still, candidates meeting Zane’s criteria may be emerging even without the formal SMRR endorsement. Kathleen T. Schwallie, an attorney, and Sharon Gilpin, a long-time slow-growth activist, on Monday took out nomination papers for City Council candidates. Both are founding members of Santa Monica Neighborhood Coalition.

Schwallie said she did not ask for an endorsement by SMRR and expects to run an independent campaign. However, she described Reed as “an incumbent who needs to be defeated.”

Schwallie said Reed has voted for too much development in the city, including the controversial beach hotel.

Gilpin, who said she has resigned from the campaign committee of one of the ballot measures aimed at banning future hotels and large restaurants on the beach, said she also expects to run an independent campaign. Gilpin was also involved in a referendum drive that forced the City Council early this year to rescind its approval of a large commercial development at Santa Monica Municipal Airport.

At the Sunday convention, SMRR reaffirmed its opposition to a ballot measure that would make the city attorney’s job an elected position rather than an appointed one. The measure was drafted by residents seeking to oust City Atty. Robert M. Myers. His reluctance to prosecute homeless people for certain nonviolent crimes has led some residents to blame him for many of the problems the city has experienced with its large homeless population.

The homeless issue is expected to spill over into the City Council campaign as well. Councilwoman Reed, for one, has said she will emphasize in her reelection effort a need for the city to be less hospitable to the homeless.

On the rent control front, SMRR predictably voted to oppose a ballot measure backed by landlords that would lift rent controls on any apartment that is vacated voluntarily.

The group endorsed a competing ballot measure, which received final approval from the City Council Tuesday night. It would set up a formula allowing rents to increase to specific levels on units vacated voluntarily.

SMRR also stated its support for a $75-million bond measure for the school district and the statewide “Big Green” environmental initiative sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

For the Rent Control Board, which has four seats up for election in November, the group endorsed incumbent Commissioner Jay Johnson, tenant attorney Lisa Monk Borrino and child development specialist Suzanne Abrescia for four-year terms, and Bob Nieman, a math teacher, for a two-year term.

The group also endorsed Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board member Patricia Hoffman for reelection. The steering committee of the group will consider other endorsements later in the year for three other seats on the school board, as well as for four seats on the Board of Trustees of the Santa Monica Community College District.