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 28, 2014 -- Question: You’re given absolute authority in Santa Monica for one day to do one thing. What do you do?

Name: Jennifer Kennedy
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Manager/Consultant
Answer: Now we’re talking! I would bring CicLAvia to Santa Monica, and call it CicSAMOvia, and allow a full festival so the streets are open to pedestrians and cyclists. People would be able to use the streets all over the city for recreation, to visit friends, enjoy the weather, try food, listen to music and have tons of fun.

Name: Michael Feinstein
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Author/Writer
Answer: One variation is to stop cars all at the border and have one day where people use non-motorized transportation to get around, but where we’d provide extra neighborhood-based shuttles to show what life could be like in such a world. Second is to eliminate all pass-through car trips from LA that aren’t destined for Santa Monica, in order to see how much impact LA-based development has on our city, compared to Santa Monica-based development. Third is to close down Santa Monica airport and measure the decrease in noise and pollution without the jets – wait, that already happened when SMO was shut down for a few days a few years ago, and the pollution levels in nearby Sunset Park were 12-17 times lower!

Name: Jon Mann
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Teacher
Answer: One day isn’t enough time, but my mission for the last quarter century has been to replace the present council with a new council that only represents the residents, and to implement a Virtual Town Hall on the city website home page, to insure that the council remains the voice of the people.

Name: Richard McKinnon
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Business Owner
Answer: Guarantee that for all time, access to the beach is free and unimpeded by restrictions or buildings.

Name: Kevin McKeown
Status: Incumbent
Occupation: Apple Technology Consultant for Local Public Schools in Santa Monica and Malibu
Answer: I ride my bike to the beach. It doesn’t get any better than a day at the beach in Santa Monica. I really don’t know how I could improve on that, no matter how much authority I had.

Name: Zoë Muntaner
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Founder/Chief Compassion Officer, Writer, Creative Activist, Chief Strategy Officer
Answer: I would form a city owned wholesale bank that would have only one customer: the City of Santa Monica. This would make it possible for the city to save millions of dollars in interest expense; it would make it possible for the City to support local, privately owned banks that would serve as a public/private partnership designed to keep the income and wealth produced by our citizens in our community. It is essential to cut the ties with Wall Street wherever possible and keep our money where it belongs: here in Santa Monica. That is the key to a more prosperous city. I come from a banking family and I know that local banking works to help the local merchants and residents prosper.

Name: Whitney Scott Bain
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Journalist
Answer: Begin groundbreaking on an environmentally friendly and sustainable desalinization plant at Tongva Park that would help our city with its water problems as well as the farming communities in California.

Name: Nick Boles
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Non-Profit Consultant/Entrepreneur
Answer: Reform housing policy in Santa Monica to save our workforce and middle class residents from being squeezed out of the city due to perpetually increasing rental pressures. The widening gap between affordable and market rate housing is an emergency that needs to be solved. Large numbers of working class residents are not protected under current rental control policies because they are not living in units built prior to 1995. I would create an income pegging system for rental units based on a percentage of the middle class’s take home income. This new system would still allow for profits on multi-family units, but also protect our socio-economic diversity.

Name: Phil Brock
Status: Challenger
Occupation: President/CEO of Studio Talent Group
Answer: Build Parks On City Owned Land for our residents to enjoy forever!!!​

Name: Frank Gruber
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Urban Affairs Writer and Lawyer
Answer: I’m not a big believer in absolute authority. I would bring the community together and ask for input.

Name: Terence Later
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Entertainment Consultant
Answer: Good landlords and custodians of an honorable honest city receive commendations. Poor landlords, bad landlords are in the public square in yokes.

Name: Pam O’Connor
Status: Incumbent
Occupation: Historic Preservation Planner
Answer: Make sure every child was safe and secure.

Name: Jerry Rubin
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Peace Activist
Answer: This might take some time to really think through. I mean it's not like you're granting one wish and I could shrewdly wish for a thousand more wishes. Our great City of Santa Monica deserves my taking more time to think of a really beneficial response. But, wow, what a good question!

Name: Sue Himmelrich
Status: Challenger
Occupation: Attorney at Western Center on Law and Poverty
Answer: I would make Santa Monica exempt from Costa Hawkins and the Ellis Act.