Progressives Put Rift Aside, Complete Slate

Members of the progressive coalition that dominates Santa Monica politics agreed over the last week to endorse two more candidates for City Council, but not without displaying a San Andreas Fault-sized schism over development and homeless policies.

Political newcomer Ellen Goldin, who was recruited by the city’s anti-growth forces last month, won endorsements from the Santa Monica Democratic Club and Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the powerful tenants group.

Also winning endorsements, despite a nearly successful effort from Goldin’s backers to block him, was Planning Commissioner Paul Rosenstein, who has irked the ultra-slow growthers by voting in favor of some projects they opposed but who is otherwise attuned to the groups’ political agenda.

The endorsement of the well-funded renters’ group, known by its acronym SMRR, has in the past been a huge advantage in the city, where about 70% of the residents are renters. “It’s a machine,” said Sharon Gilpin, a consultant for independent council candidate Alan Weston.

This year, however, the group’s dominance of Santa Monica politics is threatened on several fronts, including the apparent nationwide antagonism toward incumbents.

The internal squabbles over development and homeless policy issues run deep in Santa Monica. More significant politically, they cut across renter-homeowner lines: Renters are just as concerned about public safety as property owners, and property owners are as concerned about development as renters.

SMRR and the Democratic Club, who have many members in common, had endorsed incumbent council members Judy Abdo and Ken Genser at raucous sessions in August. Last week’s sessions were called in an attempt to round out the slate.

A crowded field of 18 candidates is vying for the four open council seats. SMRR dominates the council by a 5-2 majority. With one of the two minority council members retiring, the renters’ rights group could pick up a seat or lose as many as three.

The endorsement of a full slate of council candidates, even if it took two meetings and myriad ballots, appeared to reflect a consensus in both groups that it was important to present a unified front.

“We should unite,” said Michael Tarbet at the fractious Democratic Club meeting a week ago. “We could lose things we’ve been working on for 10 years.”

Patricia Hoffman also urged looking beyond differences on development strategy to keep those outside the group from making political capital from their internecine battle. “Our areas of agreement are greater than our areas of disagreement,” said Hoffman, a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu school board.

Tarbet and Hoffman’s pleas came after two ballots in which Rosenstein failed to win an endorsement.

Finally, Rosenstein won the endorsement on the third ballot after candidate Dorothy Ehrhart-Morrison bowed out and said she would be content to run as an independent.

Even then, a dozen people, most of them identified from past positions as opponents of nearly all development, voted against endorsing Rosenstein.

At the Saturday SMRR meeting, as at the Democratic Club meeting, Goldin was endorsed on the first ballot, with Rosenstein missing an endorsement by only two votes.

On the second ballot, 90 members voted to endorse no one rather than Rosenstein, meaning they would prefer to cede a seat to the opposition rather than fighting for it with one of their own.

“They’re thinking emotionally rather than politically, “ Rosenstein said. “They have apparently whipped themselves into a frenzy promoting me as a bogyman.”

Rosenstein said his record on development has been distorted by his critics because he votes for projects that fall within legal city guidelines rather than finding a rationale to reject them, as some others would have him do. Rosenstein said the proper way to slow growth is to change the city’s development standards, as he says he has fought to do.

Development may seem like a curious front-burner issue in the current depressed economy, unless “growth” is viewed in a larger context--as a code word for pressures that threaten to change the way of life in Santa Monica, including or perhaps, especially the city’s strong rent control law.

Many of the council candidates not associated with the renters’ rights movement are expected to try to keep the campaign emphasis on the council’s bumpy record on dealing with homeless issues. Promises to crack down on the homeless are prominent in the campaigns of many of the non-SMRR candidates.

The SMRR-Democratic Club coalition, meanwhile, appears to be hoping to mute the debate over how to manage the city’s large homeless contingent by embracing the comprehensive plan recommended early this year by the city’s Homeless Task Force. The SMRR majority on the council also tried to defuse the homeless controversy last month with its firing of City Atty. Robert M. Myers, the longtime defender of the rights of the homeless who had balked at implementing some of the sterner measures sought by the task force.

The issue is unlikely to go away, however. SMRR members remain divided, and Myers demonstrated at the SMRR endorsement meeting that he intends to keep the debate alive. He delivered a rousing speech calling upon the group to reassert his values against criminalizing poverty and was heartily applauded.

It was popular for candidates seeking the endorsement of SMRR on Saturday to say they would not prosecute violators of the anti-encampment law until there are adequate shelters for the homeless. No one in the audience questioned them about whether they agreed with firing Myers.

Myers’ supporters are seeking to have SMRR rebuke the City Council for his ouster. The former city attorney has also succeeded in gathering enough signatures to force an as yet unscheduled membership meeting to consider a four-page progressive platform that would include seeking to repeal ordinances against living in parks.

A homeowner group, Save Our City, meanwhile, is passing out bumper strips proclaiming: “Our rent control is safe. Our parks are not.”