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By Gene
Williams and Jorge Casuso
Staff Writers
October 27 – The producers of a controversial
TV ad opposing City Council incumbent Kevin McKeown said they
are pulling the spot after the man featured complained his views
were misrepresented.
Seth Jacobson, who produced the spots running on cable, said
the decision was made out of “courtesy” and that a
transcript of the full taping counters claims by Tim McAlevey
that he was duped.
“We’re pulling it temporarily out of rotation, but
will probably put it back on,” said Jacobson, whose company
produced the spots. “We’re doing it out of courtesy
to Mr. McAlevey if he thinks he’s being misrepresented.”
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| Council member Kevin McKeown
and Tim McAlevey at fundraiser. (Photo by Gene Williams) |
At a fundraiser for McKeown Thursday night, McAlevey reiterated
his claims that he was misled by the producers of the ad bankrolled
by the Edward Thomas Management Company, which owns Casa del Mar
and Shutters on the Beach hotels.
The silver-haired 18-year resident of Santa Monica said that
a friend who is a video producer asked him to go on camera to
talk about the city’s homeless problem. The pay was $200.
Later he found out the real reason he had been filmed, McAlevey
said. While watching Monday Night football on ESPN, he was surprised
to see himself featured in an ad attacking McKeown.
“It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen
an ad like this,” said McAlevy, who said he had voted for
McKeown twice before.
McAlevey said he never intended to speak against the two-term
council member. In fact, he plans to vote for McKeown again in
the race for three open council seats November 7.
The views expressed on the television ad attacking McKeown’s
votes on homeless issues was all trick editing by a PR firm hired
by the beachfront hotels, he said.
“I have to admit I was probably a little stupid,”
said McAlevey, who appeared as the guest of honor at McKeown’s
rally at Fred Denny’s Back On Broadway restaurant.
“What’s the real story,” McAlevey said, “it’s
not about me being stupid, about the video editor trying to fool
me.
“It’s about a bunch of people who want more luxury
hotels on the beach in Santa Monica, which we need like a hole
in the head.”
(Proposition S, an initiative approved by Santa Monica voters
in 1990, bans any new hotels on the beach.)
Speaking to a few dozen supporters at the popular café,
McKeown said the big hotel interests -- which according to campaign
finance disclosure statements filed this week have pumped more
than $400,000 into the council race -- could spend as much as
$1 million to put him out of office.
McKeown said he has made enemies with the powerful tourist lodges
because he opposes major development and was a vocal supporter
of a pioneering living wage ordinance.
The ordinance – the first in the nation to cover private
businesses with no direct ties to City Hall – was defeated
at the polls in 2002 after a hard-hitting campaign bankrolled
the Edward Thomas Management Company that broke local spending
records.
Jacobson, who also worked on the living wage battle, said a six-page
video transcript of the television ad shows McAlevey criticizing
McKeown’s homeless policies.
“Okay,” he is quoted as saying, “the thing
about any change that takes place politically, you get a certain
amount of time to make the proper moves and to make the correct
moves, and Kevin McKeown has been on the city council for 10 years,
and I can guarantee you in the last 10 years the homeless visible
population has grown at least two or three times.”
McAlevey then expresses the same views in different words.
Jacobson has said the ads correctly point out that McKeown has
opposed ordinances that attempt to address Santa Monica’s
homeless problem, which continues to place at the top of polls
gauging residents’ concerns.
In 2002, shortly before running for a second term, McKeown voted
against an ordinance that makes providing meals without County
and City permits in a public park or space a misdemeanor. And
last year, he voted against a law to prohibit “humans”
on the steep cliffs towering above Pacific Coast Highway.
McKeown, who recently backed an effort to move programs that
hand out free meals to the homeless indoors and approved the hiring
of a homeless czar to wrangle regional support to tackle the issue,
has defended his record on homelessness as “humane.”
Among the several dozen people attending McKeown’s rally
were Gleam Davis, who along with McKeown and Council member Pam
O’Connor, are backed by Santa Monicans for Renters’
Rights, the powerful tenants’ group that holds a one-seat
majority on the seven-member council.
“It’s like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,”
Davis said of the expensive ad campaign against McKeown.
Also present were Planning Commission Chair Jay Johnson, who
is a member of local the Democratic Club, which backs McKeown,
and Diana Gordon, whose Coalition for a Livable City also gave
the councilman their endorsement.
John Petz, an education activist who was at the rally, said the
recent campaign to oust McKeown inspired him to create a new organization
called Santa Monicans for Open Democracy.
The group is organizing a rally and march this weekend in front
of Shutters, Petz said.
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