By Lookout Staff

Editor’s Note: The Lookout News sent several questions to the 14 candidates running for City Council. Each answer was limited to 125 words. The Lookout is publishing the candidates’ answers over several days. In each posting, the candidates' answers will be shown in the same order as their names appear on the ballot or in reverse order.

October 14, 2014 -- Question: Because no candidate was able to get enough votes at the Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) convention to earn an endorsement, the decision of whom to back was made by a small committee (Learn more here). Does this devalue the significance of SMRR support? Should SMRR still be considered a powerful organization?

Name: Sue Himmelrich
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Attorney at Western Center on Law and Poverty
Answer: SMRR is the only local organization that has ever endorsed its candidates at a convention of its members. Other local organizations — CEPS, Chamber of Commerce — make their endorsements by a small committee. This year, because of SMRR’s years of open membership, several outside organizations recruited new members, many with no SMRR history, to try and win support for their candidates. As a result the convention did not endorse. To ensure that such efforts do not stymie SMRR’s ability to run candidates to protect rent control and control development, SMRR’s by-laws provide the steering committee authority to support candidates. I am pleased and proud to have been supported by SMRR this year because they see my clear commitment to renters’ rights and to controlling over-development.  

Name: Jerry Rubin
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Peace Activist
Answer: I have always supported and continue to support SMRR and their important renters rights ongoing work, but certainly SMRR can and should revise their endorsement process so it can be decided by their members at their convention, not afterward by committee.

Name: Pam O’Connor
Status: Incumbent
Occupation: Historic Preservation Planner
Answer: There are many organizations that make endorsements in elections and each has its own set of bylaws and procedures. Some, like the Los Angeles Democratic Party, require that delegates vote; some appoint a committee to decide. While the SMRR process (their bylaws are not available) appears to require a membership vote, there obviously is a mechanism that allows a committee to decide — so that is their method of operation.

Name: Terence Later
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Entertainment Consultant
Answer: Yes, SMRR’s significance is devalued. The endorsement process for many of those people with the power of endorsement in our city is flawed. I was present at the SMRR convention. Many hours were spent sweating in the JAMS cafeteria. Many residents of Santa Monica showed up to voice their opinion. Only to have SMRR, in the end, deny those SMRR members their right to choice. There were comments from the SMRR old guard such as, “too many new faces.”

Name: Frank Gruber
 Status: Challenger
Occupation: Urban Affairs Writer and Lawyer
Answer: I’m probably not the person to ask about this. At SMRR’s membership convention, where 452 members voted, I came in a strong second. Later, seven members of the Steering Committee voted to endorse the candidate who came in fifth at the convention, and then weeks after that voted to endorse the candidate who came in fourth. Many longtime and active SMRR members, including leaders (some who have endorsed me), feel offended that the members’ votes were ignored in what they call a backroom-deal, especially when some Steering Committee members were being paid by candidates for political consulting and financial accounting services. However, I doubt this will affect SMRR’s significance since most of the electorate does not follow local news closely enough to know this happened.

Name: Phil Brock
Status: Challenger
Occupation: President/CEO of Studio Talent Group
Answer: SMRR has lost its purpose. It appears its purpose is to maintain power rather than exercise it for the good of residents. There was substantial SMRR support for Hines (until there wasn't). If the SMRR Board is deciding endorsements, why bother with a convention? SMRR needs to find its focus and truly work for the good of residents. The emergence of Residocracy caused SMRR to realign. Had SMRR been focused on renters’ quality of life over the last decade, we would not be burdened with horrendous traffic and poor planning decisions. Our Council would be listening to residents. Residocracy is a now needed in Santa Monica since we cannot trust our Planning Department, City Manager or City Council.

Name: Nick Boles
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Non-Profit Consultant/Entrepreneur
Answer: No, the chosen candidates will get the same level of support even without the formal endorsement process. SMRR still has power, but its lack of a transparent support process should be brought to the public’s attention.

Name: Whitney Scott Bain
 Status: Challenger
Occupation: Journalist
Answer: Yes and yes. When my 88-year-old mother was being erroneously evicted on false charges from her rent controlled apartment, I went to SMRR and they did nothing to help her.

Name: Zoë Muntaner
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Founder/Chief Compassion Officer, Writer, Creative Activist, Chief Strategy Officer
Answer: No

Name: Kevin McKeown
Status: Incumbent
Occupation: Apple Technology Consultant for Local Public Schools in Santa Monica and Malibu
Answer: This year’s SMRR convention was local democracy at work: messy, but productive. SMRR rejected pro-growth candidates, even the incumbent Mayor, dismissed in the first round of voting. Another relatively pro-growth candidate could not muster enough votes, even with concerted union support. Beyond that, there were simply too many candidates and too much single-choice bullet voting for the convention to achieve consensus. The fallback committee support makes clear that SMRR leadership has returned to the promise of the SMRR platform: “…protecting the community from excessive development and the traffic it generates.” Jennifer Kennedy, Sue Himmelrich, and I, the three SMRR-supported candidates, all have rock-solid slow growth voting records. SMRR’s strength is its thirty-five year history as the longest-lived municipal grassroots progressive political organization in the country.

Name: Richard McKinnon
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Business Owner
Answer: Votes at a broadly based democratic convention should always be respected. SMRR will always retain political support if it bases decisions on support for tenants, tenant rights and fair treatment. There are 28,000 rent control units in Santa Monica and almost 60,000 renters. SMRR continue to matter.

Name: Jon Mann
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Teacher
Answer: The mockery of a nominating convention undermined by the SMRR steering committee is nothing new, but voters continue to vote for SMRR candidates. SMRR leadership realizes over development was implemented by council members they put in office, so their new spin is to sell the residents on “so called affordable housing” (SCAH) and endorse so called “slow growth” candidates who will continue development at a slightly reduced pace. It seems to be working; the evidence is all the powerful endorsements SMRR candidates are receiving throughout the city, including two from Residocracy…

Name: Michael Feinstein
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Author/Writer
Answer: The SMRR convention failed to endorse because under its voting system, if you most favor one candidate, there is incentive to only cast one of your votes, lest your second or third preference undermines your first. Because of this, no one voted for their second and third choice, if/until their first got in which never happened. The reform for both SMRR and Santa Monica is ranked-choice voting. Had SMRR used it, the convention would have likely endorsed three seats, giving its support more meaning. Because candidates are ranked, it would minimize the value of vote trading, which contaminated the convention. With only one voting round needed, candidates would also have more time to speak to the issues than the paltry two minutes they were given.

Name: Jennifer Kennedy
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Manager/Consultant
Answer: No, this does not devalue the significance of SMRR support for the same reasons it does not devalue the significance of the support of other organizations that utilize a board or committee of people to make endorsements instead of the vote of a membership. A board or committee in this instance is usually made up the active members in the organization, who often make recommendations on issues at other times, or who are active helping guide the weekly or monthly activity of the group.