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

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 is your assessment of the state of the city?

A. It is in remarkably good shape on a variety of fronts. Cities all over the state and country are facing fiscal collapse--and Santa Monica has nowhere near the problems that others face. We recently had our bond rating upgraded to an A+. Commercial areas have been substantially upgraded. Obviously the homeless problems are still severe. We’re struggling to try to deal with it in the most humane way possible.

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Q. What about quality-of-life issues?

A. There will be differences of opinion about that. Some people liked the town when it was really very quiet, and they don’t like the level of activity that the downtown or other commercial areas now have.

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Q. What do you say to them?

A. It’s not tenable that downtown should be dead like it was. Finding strategies to bring it back to life inherently means more people come. There was a choice that had to be made as to whether the city would have a deteriorated economic life and no commercial activity, or whether we’d try to revive them. I think the city made the right choice.

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Q. As you look back over your 12 years, what do you see as your biggest accomplishments?

A. The biggest accomplishments are clearly rent control and the founding and sustaining of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR).

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Q. Why?

A. Rent control preserved the homes of 60,000 people. And if we hadn’t had rent control, 75% of the people who live here now would not be living here. Preserving the homes of people is clearly my most significant contribution.

I think next of the revitalization of the downtown, of Third Street Promenade. I also take great pride in the city’s environmental agenda. We have, along with perhaps San Jose and Irvine, the most proactive environmental agenda of any municipality in California.

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Q. City Councilwoman Asha Greenberg said recently that SMRR runs the city like a private club. How do you respond to that?

A. I think it’s silly. I don’t even know what she means by it.

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Q. It means that only the people who belong to SMRR and their friends get heard, are involved in decisions and all the other things that go with being in the in-crowd.

A. Back 12 years ago when the City of Santa Monica was run by the Board of Realtors, Santa Monica Bank and the Chamber of Commerce, that would have been an appropriate characterization. Now it sounds a little bit like sour grapes. Grass-roots politics has prevailed over Chamber of Commerce politics, and so now it’s a private club because the good old boys who used to run things don’t get to do it anymore.

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Q. How can you call SMRR grass-roots politics? It seems more like an entrenched political machine now--I don’t mean machine in the negative sense of the word.

A. No, you only use that language because we win. But what you aren’t acknowledging is the differences. For example, SMRR raises its money door-to-door and by direct mail from residents of the city. It gets 5,000 contributions every year, averaging $30, from residents. It has an open membership, an open convention. So if it’s a machine, then it’s a machine of the people.

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Q. Let me give you an example. Bob Holbrook told me recently that in his two years on a SMRR-controlled council, he has not been able to get one person appointed to a city board or commission. Isn’t he entitled to have a few spots?

A. There may be some grounds for criticism about the appointment process. I don’t recall the specific nominees that Holbrook brought up, nor do I ever recall being called by him about a nominee he wanted to advocate. They can’t expect council members are going to simply support names that are otherwise unfamiliar to them.

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Q. But the names would be familiar to them if they were in SMRR.

A. What you’re supposing is that all of the people who get appointed by SMRR are SMRR active. It’s not true. Just because Bob has poor political skills when it comes to getting people nominated isn’t a reason to say that non-SMRR people are being shut out.

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Q. Some people think that Santa Monica is at a crossroads with the Pier and the Promenade. For example, the Promenade could go right down the tubes--all you need is a couple of Westwood incidents.

A. Any time you live in an urban environment, there are risks that the ill-behaved of the overall urban area might come and there might be an incident. But the success of the Promenade will depend not upon whether those things are avoided, but whether the retail market fills in properly. I’m very confident. But I do think that the city needs to give attention to prospects for housing development on 5th and 6th and 7th streets, for example.

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Q. One could argue that Santa Monica already has the biggest stock of affordable housing in the state with its rent-controlled apartments.

A. It does have one of the biggest stocks of affordable housing. It’s also in regional parlance what they call job-rich, and to make its contribution in the regional traffic management objectives it needs to increase the amount of housing--not just affordable housing, but housing in general. This new housing would not be subject to rent control. We’d be talking about building housing according to the percentages the voters adopted with Prop R--that 30% would be affordable and 70% would be market rate.

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Q. You’ve been told over and over that’s not going to fly with the developers because you’re requiring the affordable units to be on the same site, and they say such projects are not economically feasible.

A. I don’t believe it. They want to make more money and build more luxury condos.

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Q. What’s wrong with luxury condos?

A. Nothing intrinsically. The issue is proportions. A hundred percent luxury condos is a terrible idea because it doesn’t meet the needs of the community and would distort the demographics of the community.

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Q. If you build some luxury condos, doesn’t that balance out the 70% of housing in the city that is rent-controlled apartments?

A. Excuse me. There are plenty of luxury condos being built in Santa Monica. Far too many. The idea that Santa Monica should feel blessed with the idea that the wealthy of the region would come here to live is just not a valid position.

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Q. What’s wrong with having wealthy people come to live in Santa Monica?

A. Nothing’s wrong with having wealthy people come to Santa Monica. What’s wrong is having only wealthy people come to Santa Monica. Having roughly a third of the units be affordable units isn’t shutting wealthy people out. Frankly, that looks like a rather high proportion to most people in this community. It would be better to be fifty-fifty.

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Q. That brings me around to the observation that this is the only community I have ever been around where property owners are treated as though they have some sort of disease.

A. Aren’t you displaying your own political prejudices here?

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Q. I don’t think so. It certainly is argued by many that a property owner is regarded as a second-class citizen by SMRR.

A. That’s crazy.

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Q. I have heard over and over again that council members display such attitudes from the dais. Kelly Olsen the other night spoke with horror that there are only two renters on the City Council--as though property owners were incapable of representing rent-control interests.

A. I think he was saying he has a concern when two-thirds of the community is renters and one-third of the council is renters. And I think it’s perfectly legitimate. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with being a property owner--only that you don’t necessarily have the same interests as those who are renters.

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Q. As someone who has attended the sessions for more than a year, I have seen that virtually any landlord or developer who comes before the council is subjected to disdain the minute he or she walks up to speak.

A. I think that’s complete nonsense. There’s certainly attitudes by some council members about commercial development and about a few landlords.

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Q. Your whole SMRR election ad campaign reflected it, featuring the landlord/developer in every mail piece as the bogyman.

A. So what’s that got to do with property owners?

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Q. Landlords are property owners.

A. I agree with you that there’s a fair amount of political hostility in the community about developers.

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Q. And about landlords and about property owners?

A. I think that’s false. I think this reflects your own attitudes toward members of the SMRR majority. If what you think is that (our) politics assert a priority of other views over developer views and over landlord views, I think that that’s a fair statement. But not homeowners.

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Q. As a council observer, I have detected a certain meanness of spirit on the City Council when people who disagree with the majority appear to speak. What’s your response to that?

A. There has been a lot of contentiousness around development issues, and division in the community about how best to address homelessness. People feel strongly about those issues and will argue about them. But I think it is false to say that it reflects a meanness of spirit.

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Q. And you don’t see in yourself or in your fellow council members the tendency to sometimes tee off on somebody who comes up to speak?

A. Every council member is vulnerable to showing irritation and anger from time to time. To say that there’s a pattern or that it’s frequent, I think, is false.

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Q. One of the new council members, Paul Rosenstein, told me recently he hopes to encourage the council be more open to divergent opinions and to urge people who have felt thwarted by the atmosphere in the last few years to rejoin the dialogue. What do you think of that?

A. I have not heard him say anything of this sort. So I don’t know what you’re referring to.

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Q. Why did you give up your teaching career and devote your life for 12 years to a job that pays $50 a month?

A. The City of Santa Monica creates an opportunity to work on things and to achieve in areas that few other cities do. It would be very difficult for me to imagine a job remotely as interesting or as satisfying as being a council member in Santa Monica.

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Q. Your admirers and detractors say with both affection and dismay that you think you’re indispensable to the city and won’t be able to get along without being a council leader.

A. I harbor no such delusions. I’m going to deal with the transition to private life quite well.

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Q. And what do you see your role being in Santa Monica now?

A. Limited. I will continue to work with SMRR. I will continue to be involved with the Pier and Promenade issues from time to time when called upon.

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Q. What are you going to do professionally?

A. For the first year I will continue to do free-lance contract work in environmental and energy policy areas But I also would like to eventually work in areas of downtown revitalization in other cities.

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Q. Do you see yourself a year or two from now lobbying before this Santa Monica City Council for clients or projects?

A. I could see myself lobbying on environmental issues or on affordable housing or education stuff.

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Q. As a paid lobbyist?

A. I don’t close out the possibility, although I do close out the possibility of doing that for development. I think that I would feel uncomfortable about it.

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Q. Why?

A. I think my reputation in the community is good and I wouldn’t want to create any ambiguity about it. People have legitimate concerns about lobbying for development, so I don’t intend to have a relationship with new development projects in Santa Monica.