Zane, Feinstein Face Off Over Proposed Charter Amendment

By Jorge Casuso

Feb. 13 -- In what could set the tone for a divisive, combative campaign, Councilman Michael Feinstein and former mayor Dennis Zane engaged in a heated debate Wednesday over a proposed charter amendment that guarantees City funding to the School District.

The debate, which took place at a meeting of the Santa Monica College Classified Senate, was less an exchange than a chance to deliver stump speeches on the pros and cons of the amendment -- which requires that the City Council give at least $6 million to the district every year.

Zane, who heads the politically powerful Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, of which Feinstein is a member, called the amendment slated for the November ballot, “a moderate and fair measure” that would provide the cash-strapped district with a “final, reliable funding stream.”

“The City’s dollars are the community’s dollars, and they should reflect the community’s priorities,” said Zane, noting that Santa Monica residents have consistently listed education as a top priority.

“In my view it’s a question of priorities,” he said. “Schools should be considered high priority for the council.”

Feinstein called the proposed charter amendment “reckless” and predicted it would pit municipal and district employees, lead to a legal challenge and hurt future voter-based funding efforts by the district.

“This is going to make major enemies in this community, pitting City employees versus school employees,” said Feinstein, who served two years as mayor. “Our City employees feel their salaries are being taken for the district.

“They’re just going to raid the City budget,” he said. “It’s really depressing.”

Feinstein warned that the amendment, which supporters began circulating a week ago, would train a light in the district’s past fiscal policies, “immensely” hurting the chances of passing any future parcel tax increases.

“There’s going to be a major hit on the district in terms of exposing bad budget management in the past,” Feinstein warned.

Echoing the sentiments of fellow council members, Feinstein said that the City has “managed our money well” and has refused to “spend money we don’t have,” which is why “we’ve had extra money to give the district.”

The amendment -- which requires the council to boost the annual $6 million if its general fund increases by at least 3.5 percent -- “creates a new funding mandate when there is no income source for that," Feinstein said.

“This is going to put a direct hit on social services,” he said. “It’s going to be putting pressure on the homeless, on seniors, youth at risk and City employees.”

Zane, a former school teacher, said that forces beyond the district’s control – such as Prop 13 – have sent California’s per pupil spending plummeting from first in the nation to 43rd.

Local communities, he said, “have few tools” to combat the “erosion” in the state’s school system. Santa Monica – which has the highest level of parcel taxation of any district in the state – “has tried over the years to be a very supportive community.”

“We think the voters indicated that we’ve reached the limit,” said Zane, who noted that a parcel tax increase that pumps $6.5 million a year into the district was approved last June by a razor-thin margin. The City needs to step up to the plate and do the community’s bidding, he said.

“The City has multiple streams of income and the City should recognize that we are one community, and City money is not the City Council’s money, it’s the community’s,” Zane said.

Feinstein and Zane, who have had several clashes in the past, engaged in a brief exchange after Feinstein made several comments that Zane, who was on the committee that drafted the measure, took as personal attacks.

Feinstein said the proposed charter amendment, which requires the signatures of about 8,000 registered voters to make the ballot, was proposed by “a small group of people sharing common beliefs talking to each other” without wide community dialogue and “playing footloose and fancy free” with the City’s money.

Feinstein laid the blame for the district’s woes not on a lack of funding from the council, which upped its traditional $3 million a year to $5.25 million last year -- but to poorly run parcel tax campaigns conceived and mounted by education advocates.

He noted that in November 2000, district supporters “chickened out and went with a $98” parcel tax increase, then ran “a very poor campaign in 2002,” when a $300 parcel tax increase was rejected by voters.

“It’s unfortunate that poorly run campaigns and poorly conceived ballot measures in the past are being compensated for by poor fiscal policies today,” Feinstein said.

Zane, who has worked on the ballot measures, took the comments personally.

“I certainly didn’t expect to come here and be described as reckless, chicken and footloose and fancy free,” he said. “I think we need to stop demonizing us… It’s certainly not going to help public schools using rhetoric like that.”