ELECTIONS / BEACHFRONT DEVELOPMENT : Hotel Issue Seen as Test of Slow-Growth Clout : Santa Monica: Conflicting claims over Proposition Z, an initiative to repeal approval of a proposed luxury hotel and community center, has added to confusion over the ballot measure.

A line is drawn in the sand of Santa Monica, and the future use of nearly five acres of choice beachfront property hangs in the balance.

Will the city’s voters endorse construction of a $65-million luxury hotel and community center on the beach or call a halt to such development?

Will the promise of millions of dollars in new revenue for city services outweigh objections from environmentalists who oppose placing a posh hotel on public land?

Will voters sort through a maze of conflicting claims and understand how to vote on a confusing ballot question?

As the campaign enters its final days, the answer to these questions is in doubt. So, a full-court press is on, with both sides making last-minute appeals to voters through the mail, on the phone, at the door, and on slate cards.

The hotel has come to embody the citywide debate over development, and the election shapes up as a test of the clout of slow-growth forces. Despite the intense grass-roots interest, however, most of the financing for this final campaign blitz is coming from bitter rivals in the battle over the future use of a beachfront parcel that is owned by the state and managed by the city.

The latest campaign contribution reports show restaurateur Michael McCarty has spent more than $282,000 on his campaign to realize his dream of building a posh hotel and a community center on Pacific Coast Highway.

On the opposite side, Sand and Sea Club operator Doug Badt and members of the now-closed private club that occupied the property for years have contributed nearly $42,000 in recent weeks to the fight against McCarty. Together with late contributions from other sources, including a Pacific Palisades neighborhood group and Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), opponents have raised nearly $55,000.

The fate of the hotel project is now in the hands of the voters, who must decide Proposition Z on Tuesday’s ballot and two other ballot measures, Propositions S and T that would clamp a moratorium on development of hotels and restaurants elsewhere on the Santa Monica beachfront.

Over the protests of the slow-growth community groups that have emerged as a significant force in city politics in just the past year, the Santa Monica City Council approved the 148-room hotel and community center on a 4-3 vote last August. But fearing a voter backlash, the council made its approval subject to ratification by the voters, and put the hotel issue on the November ballot.

Rather than a straight up-or-down vote, however, the council accepted language suggested by McCarty’s attorney that asks voters whether they want to repeal the city’s approval of the project.

Consequently, opponents of the hotel must vote yes on Proposition Z and supporters of the facility must vote no.

If there is one thing that both sides agree on, it is that the wording of the ballot measure has caused confusion in voter’s minds.

“They chose to hand the voters confusion. They chose to do it on purpose,” charges Sharon Gilpin, leader of the Yes on Z campaign that opposes the hotel project.

Gilpin, who also is a candidate for City Council, said the wording has forced opponents to adopt a double-barreled campaign message that tells voters that a yes vote on Proposition Z means a no vote on the beach hotel.

McCarty and his team of political consultants have settled on a different theme. In a parade of campaign mailers, they have attempted to sell voters on the financial and social benefits of the project, which was selected by the city from 11 separate proposals for use of the beachfront property.

The beach property would be leased to McCarty and his associates for 60 years with two options that could extend the term to 99 years.

McCarty contends the project will generate $32 million in lease payments, sales tax revenues and hotel tax receipts over a 10-year period. The money would be used to support city and park programs, provide better security and beach maintenance, help clean up Santa Monica Bay and allow Santa Monica school students to use an environmental center and art facilities in the community center next to the hotel.

The three-story project would also include changing rooms and showers for the public and a beach cafe.

Gilpin rejects such arguments, questioning the financial projections the estimate is based on. And she objects to the concept of developing a “super-luxury hotel” affordable to a tiny percentage of the population on a publicly-owned beach. “People don’t want hotels on the beach in Santa Monica.”

Opponents also have been seeking to focus anti-development sentiment in the city against McCarty’s project by making it a symbol of overdevelopment.

McCarty, a pioneer in California cuisine who built upscale restaurants in four cities across the country, balks at being branded as a major developer.

“This is a 148-room hotel. This is a little community center and hotel,” McCarty said in an interview at his flagship restaurant, Michael’s, on 3rd Street in Santa Monica. Contrasting his project with the vast office development the City Council attempted to push through last year on city property at Santa Monica Airport, he said, “this is not 40 acres of development with massive buildings. This has been blown completely out of proportion to what it really is.”

McCarty, long a supporter of progressive politics, blames Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), an outspoken critic of the hotel, for the political battle he is now engaged in.

“Why should a project of this scope go to a vote of the people. It wouldn’t be going to a vote of the people if it hadn’t been for Tom Hayden,” McCarty said. He accused Hayden of acting at the behest of Sand and Sea Club members and Badt, whose rival proposal for use of the property was rejected.

Hayden has denied the charge. “The issue is whether voters feel that overdevelopment has become too frustrating in Santa Monica and want to send a message by turning down this luxury hotel on the beach,” he said. “Voters need to ask themselves if Michael McCarty has the best interest of Santa Monica at heart.”

The fight to win passage of Proposition 128, the so-called Big Green environmental initiative on the state ballot has occupied most of Hayden’s time and energy this campaign season. But his influence was a factor in the decision of the Sierra Club, his ally in the state campaign, to join in fighting the beach hotel in Santa Monica.

To McCarty’s dismay, both the Sierra Club and the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters have come out in favor of Proposition Z and against his hotel, warning of traffic, air pollution and overdevelopment.

The environmental groups’ endorsements have been repeatedly emphasized in anti-hotel campaign mailers. McCarty questions how carefully the environmental groups examined the issue and denies the project will have adverse impacts.

One environmental organization, Heal the Bay, chose to stay out of the fray, despite intense lobbying. President Dorothy Green said the Santa Monica-based organization traditionally does not get involved in land-use issues. “We just didn’t want to get caught up in that,” she said.

In the closing days, the level of rhetoric from both sides has grown more heated and the controversy over campaign mailers and tactics more intense.

Supporters of McCarty’s project have filed two complaints with the state Fair Political Practices Commission in the last week, accusing opponents of the hotel of violating the state’s political reform laws.

A McCarty ally alleged that the anti-hotel forces failed to fully report their campaign contributions and spending through the end of September, particularly the role of Badt and members of the Sand and Sea Club. A bulletin sent to club members in September urged them to devote membership dues to the battle against the hotel.

Gilpin insisted that all contributions and spending was reported. The first contributions from Badt and club members did not appear on the Yes on Z’s campaign statements until Oct. 2, two days after the club was evicted from the beach property where the hotel would be built.

“We didn’t take a dime from the club until they moved,” Gilpin said. “Not a dime until they left the site.”

She made no apologies for the anti-hotel campaign being financed largely by club members, saying it was “completely appropriate to take money from any source (to wage) this battle for public land.”

Gilpin said the anti-hotel forces knew they would be outspent and had to raise money to wage a campaign in the mail. They could not rely solely on door-to-door campaigning. “We’re not in the ‘60s anymore,” she said. “We’re not crazy idealists. You can’t do it. Campaigning has changed.”

A McCarty backer has also asked the FPPC to investigate invitations to two community meetings sent by Hayden’s Assembly office at taxpayer expense. Hayden insisted that mailing was “perfectly legitimate.”

McCarty’s campaign tactics have also come under attack.

One of the many mailers produced by the pro-hotel side suggests that approval of the hotel could help reduce rapes on the beach by providing the city with revenue to fight crime.

“To say that a hotel is going to solve these problems is a ridiculous notion,” Gilpin said.

McCarty makes no apologies for the mailer, and he vigorously defends the project, saying that opponents “know there is crime at the beach. They know there is pollution. They know the education system here needs money. And they know the public access benefits of our project.”

But Hayden called a suggestion in McCarty’s campaign mailers that taxes will go up if the hotel is rejected “a completely preposterous statement.”

From Hayden’s perspective, the issue is simple--whether voters accept the actions of “the city government that just keeps approving more and more development than the community can take.”

DEVELOPMENT BALLOT MEASURES

Three of the propositions on the Santa Monica ballot Tuesday deal with development issues. Here is how they compare:

Proposition S--Would prohibit future development of hotels and large restaurants west of Ocean Avenue, except on and near Santa Monica Pier.

Background: Placed on the ballot through an initiative drive financed primarily by Douglas Badt, owner of the Sand and Sea Club, which was recently evicted from its publicly owned beach site. The measure was originally intended to block construction of Michael McCarty’s hotel and community center on the site. The fate of the McCarty project is now more specifically linked to Proposition Z, however, and the entire matter may end up being resolved in court. Meanwhile, Proposition S is being embraced by slow-growth advocates for its broader limitations on beach development.

City Council candidates in favor: Larry Jon Hobbs, Kelly Olsen, Kathleen Schwallie, Sharon Gilpin, Jean Gebman.

Against: Donna Alvarez, Christine Reed, Robert Holbrook.

Declined to state position: Tony Vazquez.

Proposition T--Would establish a three-year moratorium on development of beachfront hotels and large restaurants, set aside 50% of hotel bed taxes from beachfront hotels for parks and cleanup of beaches.

Background: Placed on ballot through an initiative drive financed by McCarty and by Maguire Thomas Partners, a large Santa Monica-based development firm that recently began building the Santa Monica Ocean Hotel on Ocean Avenue. The measure was originally designed to compete with Proposition S and to protect the sponsors’ two hotel projects, but now will not apply to either. The Maguire Thomas project is exempt because work has already begun. And Proposition T is superseded by Proposition Z as far as the McCarty project is concerned. What’s left of Proposition T is a set of beach development restrictions milder than those of Proposition S. Supporters of Proposition T say the three-year moratorium should be used to study the overall beach development issue.

Candidates in favor: Holbrook, Alvarez, Reed.

Against: Hobbs, Olsen, Schwallie, Gilpin, Gebman.

Declined to state position: Vazquez.

Proposition Z--Would repeal the City Council’s approval of the Santa Monica Beach Hotel and Community Center, which McCarty plans to build on the site of the Sand and Sea Club.

Background--Placed on the ballot by the City Council at the urging of McCarty. On the premise that it would improve his chances of success, McCarty fought hard for council approval of the negative phrasing of the ballot question. The result is that supporters of the hotel must vote no, and opponents must vote yes.

Candidates in favor--Hobbs, Olsen, Schwallie, Gilpin, Gebman.

Against--Alvarez, Reed.

Declined to state position--Holbrook, Vazquez.