Herb
Katz Tapped as Mayor After 17 Years of Council Service |
By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
December 5 -- Nearly a quarter century after first being
elected to the City Council, Herb Katz -- who has dedicated half
his life to civic service in Santa Monica -- was sworn in as the
city’s new mayor Tuesday evening.
A longtime opponent of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR), the
powerful tenants group that has controlled City Hall for three decades, Katz
has watched as a long line of council colleagues assumed the mostly ceremonial
post.
But the stage for Katz to finally assume the post was set last year, when the
council voted to make Richard Bloom mayor and Katz mayor pro tempore, with the
two men switching places after one year. The two will retain their new posts
until December of 2008.
“Not everyone gets elected to a city council and less people get to be
mayor anywhere in the United States,” Katz said. “This
is quite an honor, and I will cherish it.”
Katz shed some tears and needed a moment to collect himself when he spoke fondly
of his wife Brenda, family and friends -- who banded together to form a boisterous,
standing crowd inside the Council Chamber.
“I am going to follow a hard act,” he said of Bloom. “Richard
has been one of the best mayors we ever had. He has set the standards that I
will try to live up to.”
Before his first successful bid for a council seat in 1984, Katz served on
three Santa Monica boards and commissions -- the Architectural Review Board,
the Pier Restoration Corporation and the Planning Commission.
After serving two terms on the council, Katz was appointed to the Bayside District
Board in 1992 and served until he was elected once again to the council in 2000.
He was reelected in 2004.
Katz -- who is a partner and owner of RTK Architects, Inc. -- served as mayor
pro tempore twice, his first stint from 1986 to 1988 and his second stint during
the past year.
His goals as Santa Monica mayor are to try to shorten council meetings, Katz
said, joking that “every mayor here says that.”
To achieve this, Katz said he would attempt new and innovative approaches to
public hearings so they do not appear to drag on for hours.
As mayor, he also wants to find more solutions to homelessness and its associated
problems, improve traffic and circulation in the city and keep the Land Use
and Circulation Element (LUCE) update process moving forward to a good end.
A “firm believer” in rapid transit, Katz said the city always needs
and could use more shuttle buses.
Bloom served as mayor twice, the first time from 2002 to 2004 and the second
time during the past year. He was mayor pro tempore from 2000 to 2001.
A member of SMRR, Bloom was first elected to the Council in a special election
in April 1999 and has been re-elected in 2000 and 2004.
He is currently chair of the Westside Cities Council of Governments and vice
chair of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission.
A family law attorney, Bloom has a private practice and nearly 30 years of
experience in marital dissolution, child custody and child support.
As executive director of the nonprofit Levitt & Quinn Family Law Center,
Bloom provided legal services to a diverse group of low-income clients.
He is also a volunteer judge pro tem, mediator for the Los Angeles Superior
Court and a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s family
law section executive committee.
Fond memories of his recent term as the city’s mayor include the opening
of Airport Park, a new Civic Center parking structure and a new Big Blue Bus
yard.
Bloom also helped in the efforts to bar private developers from purchasing
buildings in the Veterans Affairs complex in Westwood and worked to help create
the Solar Santa Monica program, allocate stormwater bonds, increase funding
to the school district, ban Styrofoam containers and build more affordable housing
units in the city.
“These things did not happen in a vacuum and I am not taking all credit
for them,” Bloom said. “The reality is that they are
a collaborative effort. We accomplish things in the city by working
together.”
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