Special Interests in Santa Monica

By Jonathan Mann

City Employees, SMRR, Developers, Hotels and Realtors, Tourism, Car Dealers, and the SM Airport.

This City Council and most of the candidates, (especially those with slick mailers, big name endorsements and financial inducements), have sold out the residents of this city to special interests. I have no such contributions or endorsements and seek only to represent the residents. I am fed up with the arrogance and incompetence of our City Council. The Council seems to have forgotten the voters' revolt over rent gouging in the late 70s and every election is moving futher to the right.

The Santa Monica/Malibu School District is fiscally mismanaged and needs to be audited. The huge increase in Santa Monica College enrollments of students who live outside Santa Monica is exacerbating the parking and traffic crunch. SMCC is supposed to be a community college, but it has become a business that attracts students from all over the world. The college should immediately cease any further enrollment growth and stop adding of satellite campuses. Various departments and commissions are only concerned with keeping their budgets and will support those candidates most likely to protect the bureacracy.

Santa Monica Renters Rights, (SMRR), is an entrenched political machine that is compromised by supporting candidates who are also endorsed by city employees and other outside interests. I would audit the entire city budget and also investigate whether SMRR members, sitting and past councilpersons and their friends, are profiting in any way from development and city contracts to public agencies. I personally believe it is a conflict of interest to receive any financial consideration or endorsement from anyone who works or receives funding from the city.

We all know about the incompetence on the Planning Commission and other commissions and the conflict of interest involving the Architecture Review Board and a sitting member of the Council. What does that say about an informed electorate if architects and development consultants can be elected to the Council and participate in city funded projects?

Car dealers along Santa Monica Blvd. have had their expansion approved by the Council and are asking for preferential parking; what are the auto dealers giving in return? One council member is married to an executive of Simonson Auto. I have serious concerns about local business support of City Council candidates, especially if they employ family members.

I am the only candidate who has made an unequivocal promise to work for closing the airport in 2015 when the1984 Santa Monica Airport Agreement and other leases expire. The airport does not make a profit for the City and is extremely destructive to our health and safety. We should use that land for a public park, and provide affordable housing for people who have lost their homes or apartments in Santa Monica, or for people who work in Santa Monica and can not afford to live here.

Our city, as owner and operator of Santa Monica Airport has a responsibility to take a pro-active stance investigating negative health effects that are a direct result of airport operations. The City Council should proactively address jet emissions and other citizen complaints with as much and more concern and determination as they do to supporting development, homeless issues and other special interests. Jet and turboprop activity should be monitored to ascertain the extent of their emissions into surrounding communities. Any cost to record jet and turboprop activity should be paid for by the airport. Airport staff should be directed to work with the community to derive the most cost effective method for collecting data and the entire airport budget should be audited to expose misappropriation of revenues. It is way past time for the City to confront the FAA to address pollution, safety and health concerns. Instead of adding buffer zones to extend runways the City should immediately restrict larger aircraft from using the SM Airport and putting the community at risk. The role of City Council should be to aggressively support scientific and legislative efforts to address the jet emissions problem. They have NOT done so it is up to local residents to elect a new council. I have personally experienced contamination from fuel dropping.

In the meantime we should renegotiate the Santa Monica Airport agreement to address community concerns about air pollution, excessive noise and safety. I support the formation of an ad hoc committee to include advocates from surrounding communities to work with Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution and Friends of Sunset Park. The council should listen to the residents and heed our concerns, NOT the airport's priorities...