Katz and Zane Have Left the Council, but Not Local Politics : Herb Katz

Background: They were friends and foes, the Odd Couple of Santa Monica politics. After 12 and eight years, respectively, Dennis Zane and Herb Katz turned off their microphones at the same time, retiring from the City Council this month. They were the bookends of the council, Zane leading the renters’ rights majority and Katz leading what are called the conservatives, even though he is a liberal Democrat. They often traded barbs on issues like the homeless, but they worked side by side to steer the renovation of the Promenade and the Pier through the shoals of the city slow-growth movement. Both men say they will now spend Tuesday nights at home with their wives--and get to bed at a decent hour. But first, as is their wont, they have a few words to say about their city.

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Q. What’s your assessment of the state of the city?

A. The city’s a great place to live. It has problems--any city does.

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Q. People who come to the council to testify complain that the quality of life is being lessened by several of the problems: development, crowds at the Promenade, the homeless.

A. They haven’t left the city, have they? They’re there every week, saying the same thing. You live in an urban society. You have certain problems. If you don’t like the quality of life in an urban society, you’ve got a choice. Change it, help improve it, or leave it.

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Q. Are the homeless the biggest problem in Santa Monica?

A. Oh, definitely. Homeless and crime. The homeless problem has a lot to do with the politics of the city.

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Q. How so?

A. Because of the city attorneys refusing to enforce the encampment ordinance as the council asked them to do. The word gets out, so the homeless run amok. Secondly, we need to do more for the homeless. We’ve got to find them shelter. I had suggested a long time ago a beach lot as temporary housing for them. And that way we can get them out of the parks.

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Q. Once that shelter was in place, then you would say to somebody on the street, “You have to go there at night.”

A. That’s right. You want to sleep in our city, we’ll get you out of the elements, but you are not going to sleep on private property. You are not going to sleep on our parks. And those who didn’t want to obey those laws would leave.

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Q. What do you see as your biggest accomplishment on the council?

A. Oh, boy! I hate that question.

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Q. Why?

A. Because I never can think of it. The sign ordinance is one. We put a very strict sign ordinance in place in Santa Monica.

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Q. What about the firing of City Atty. Bob Myers?

A. I’ll get to that. You asked my biggest accomplishments.

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Q. Most people wouldn’t say a sign ordinance first.

A. That was one of the first things that happened to me on the council. I believe we’ve come along way on rebuilding the Pier. I was involved in that from its inception, after the storm. Certainly the Third Street Promenade, which I put a lot of time in with Denny Zane. The firing of Myers--I don’t consider that an accomplishment, if you really want to know the truth.

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Q. What is it?

A. It needed to be done because I believe Myers was acting wrong as a city attorney, but I’d rather have seen him corrected than fired. He was fired for the wrong reason--politics. And that bothers me. I can’t consider that an accomplishment when you got the city attorney’s office doing exactly what Bob was doing, with no change. Therefore we have done nothing. I think we need to clean up that city attorney’s office--not only in size, but in its politics. The city needs to support Police Chief Jim Butts. We hired one of the best chiefs around and we shoot him in the head every time he turns around.

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Q. What do you mean?

A. Well, we stop him from using the encampment ordinance. We don’t give him the teen curfew when he asks for it. We give him 20 new cops, but we don’t give them to him right away. The man is frustrated.

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Q. Any disappointments, regrets?

A. Oh, yeah. A whole lot of disappointments.

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Q. You wanted to be mayor, right?

A. No. I really didn’t want to be mayor. I wanted to get something done--to try and pull the city together and turn it into a positive council. My frustration, my negativity in the last two years has come from spending time playing games and trying to stop micro-management and political posturing that harms the city.

I believe that there were a lot of things we could have done on a positive vein. We didn’t do that and still aren’t. We don’t look at the long range. Five people come in and gripe and we turn around and jump for them. It’s done politically and I had to counteract it politically, just to stop it or modify it, becoming basically negative.

I don’t like that. I am an architect. I like to build things. And I also am very frustrated by the setups that go on in council. I pretty well know what the votes are before I walk in there. And that’s not healthy. It isn’t open debate.

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Q. So the public process is a sham then?

A. No. This council is because it’s so politicized. It shouldn’t be a one-sided political council--that’s the problem. It may be with the two new members, the dynamics can change and you can have a more open council as we used to have. Decisions were made in the open. You got out in public and you hammered something out and you compromised it. That’s what we’re missing on council.

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Q. Rent control. Everyone from SMRR always thinks that everyone else is trying to dump on rent control.

A. I’m not. I have no hidden agenda on rent control. It’s the law. I think it is too harsh. I think they do dump on landlords. What I have fought is some controls we put on low- and moderate-income housing because it destroys development to where you can’t improve the city.

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Q. In protecting rent control, does SMRR hurt the city as a whole?

A. First of all, if you really have to protect it all the time, there must be something wrong with it. The worry about protecting it is only a worry that they may lose power, not rent control.

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Q. Were you referring before to opposing the new on-site affordable housing rules?

A. Yes. Why, if I had money, would I go out and spend half a million dollars for a condominium when 30% of the units are going to be for people who don’t own it. They’re going to rent it. Are they gonna take care of it like I would? Am I going to pay the fees, which I would, on the common areas? Why would I support that?

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Q. City Councilwoman Asha Greenberg said recently that SMRR runs Santa Monica like a private club.

A. No question. It is a private club. Because City Hall is loaded with their people. They run their council that way. Three of them eat dinner damn near every Tuesday night together.

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Q. What’s wrong with that? Does it shortchange the public?

A. Sure. If you and I are council members and go to dinner every Tuesday night, what the hell are we going to discuss? Basketball? No, we’re going to discuss what’s on the agenda for tonight.

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Q. If you’re a citizen of Santa Monica who is not in the club, how do you get hurt by this?

A. Sometimes you don’t get hurt. Sometimes the decisions are very just. Other times, you’re getting hurt because you had no input. You got up and spoke, but the decision was already made. So, you’re smoking in the wind.

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Q. It seems to me sometimes the people who come to the council who do not agree with certain members of the council, do not get a very . . .

A. Fair shake.

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Q. . . . or a cordial welcome even.

A. No. They get a hostile reception. God help you if you are a real estate agent. I think it stinks. What difference does it make what I do for a living? Everybody should be treated equally. But they aren’t.

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Q. Let’s talk for a minute more about micro-managing in the council.

A. We are a policy-making entity. We shouldn’t get into hiring and firing and running the departments. That’s why you have a city manager form of government.

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Q. Is there anything that can be done about the micro-managing?

A. I think if the city manager, if he were really strong enough, could sit on their heads.

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Q. Assess the results of the recent City Council election.

A. The SMRR slate won again. I think the public voted for the slate out of confusion this time. There were so many slates out there that a lot of the public didn’t know what to do. I think it was won by name ID.

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Q. Why did then Mayor Ken Genser, who had high name ID, not run ahead of the bunch? (Genser finished second.)

A. I think Ken’s public image stinks. And I think anybody who has heard or certainly seen him on television reacts negatively. He looks angry and he looks sinister. He does not make a decent presentation.

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Q. There’s some opinion that the non-SMRR forces really blew it in this election by being so disorganized.

A. There’s no doubt about it.

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Q. What was the problem?

A. Before I dropped out, I sat down with a group of people. The first thing I found out is they were all over the mountain. I am the incumbent. There should be no doubt that I had support.

But Jean Sedillos (a community activist) said I think we need to have all the candidates go out for a while and then we’ll decide if we’re going to back ‘em. I said, you’re telling me that I’m in the same position with everyone else?

Then the Republican groups in there said they weren’t going to get into it at all. I said, look, you’ve got a chance to take this council. Based upon divisiveness in SMRR and the public safety issue we can beat their brains in. But we have to be tight. We weren’t. We were fractionalized with amateurs trying to play gurus.

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Q. Did you decide not to run because of lack of enthusiasm within your own ranks?

A. No. I was disgusted about it but I knew they would support me. They had no place to go. But I was discouraged and tired and I said it’s time for me to get out of here.

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Q. You told me you were tired of being with this group on the council.

A. I was sick of them.

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Q. The recession was a factor too, wasn’t it?

A. I am one of two partners who goes out and gets clients. And I knew that I couldn’t afford to be on the council anymore. Every Tuesday night, there was a “national emergency” with the council--something heavy up there.

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Q. You’re saying they weren’t heavy issues.

A. The council created the heaviness by making these things important. A lot of them were political. And every Tuesday night has taken more and more time in the last year. It’s the phone calls you get all day long from irate citizens. It’s the time spent and energy spent trying to figure out what in heaven’s name this emergency’s about and how to handle it.

And the late hours. Every week you knew it was gonna be a 2-o’clock-in-the-morning meeting. The world is not an emergency. We are not doing brain surgery here. I was getting angrier and angrier and not looking forward to go to council meetings anymore.

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Q. Are you going to miss being on the council?

A. Somewhat. I will still be in the political arena in one sense or another. I will probably go back into Sunset Park Associated Neighbors and work on traffic. I think I can offer something--certainly I can scream a lot more freely. When you become a part of this political arena you’re a changed person. Once you see all this, how do you turn it off? I even listen to political rhetoric entirely differently than I did eight years ago.

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Q. You’ve learned some cynicism.?

A. I’ve learned some cynicism. I’ve also learned to really listen to what somebody is saying, because they may not be saying what everybody thinks they’re saying.