October 31, 2024 -- Santa Monica's political establishment is mounting a concerted last-ditch effort to take down Councilmember Oscar de la Torre and regain control of the City Council.
The hard hitting campaign -- which focuses on an anti-Semitic remark de la Torre allegedly made five years ago -- is being waged in the press, in campaign mailers, via text messages and inside the Council chambers.
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Leading the campaign are current and former Councilmembers -- including mayors -- current School Board members who served with de la Torre and establishment candidates running against him on November 5.
De la Torre has repeatedly denied making the alleged comment to a School District consultant in 2019, and the comment was not recorded.
"It's a coordinated attack by political opponents," de la Torre told the Lookout Wednesday. "It's not transparent that these are entrenched establishment politicians who only care about power.
"They want to regain a majority (on the Council), they want to return power to their group, which has brought us most of the problems that we have. They have been in power for about 40 years."
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De la Torre's opponents contend that the alleged comment that "the biggest problem with the school board is that it's run by the Jews" reflects a pattern of racist and anti-Semitic comments made by de la Torre over the years.
In a letter that ran in the Daily Press Tuesday, five former and current Councilmembers -- Gleam Davis, Kevin McKeown, Pam O’Connor, Terry O’Day and Ted Winterer -- brought up a June 2015 Council vote to defund the Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC) then run by de la Torre.
The Councilmembers wrote that "De la Torre’s racism was explicitly called out by several (PYFC) Board members as a key reason for their resignations."
At its 2015 meeting, however, the Council did not cite the letters -- which were written two years earlier in 2013 when the Council voted to reduce funding for the center de la Torre founded.
The vote to defund the center came after staff expressed “long-standing concerns” about the center's operation, financial management and effectiveness.
The four resignation letters -- which were included in the 2013 agenda packet -- did not resurface until last month, when on September 24 one of de la Torre's most vocal opponents, Jason Mastbaum, "unearthed" them in a piece published by Santa Monica Next, a blog that backs Santa Monica's political establishment.
De la Torre has said that the letters were written by his opponents on the PYFC Board who failed on a 6 to 5 vote to oust him as the youth center's director.
He also has repeatedly noted that while PYFC lost it's City funding, the Council has continued to fund the Police Activities League (PAL) after accusations that volunteer Eric Uller sexually molested 229 young participants cost the City $230 million in legal settlements.
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On October 11, less than three weeks after Mastbaum's piece ran, School Board member Jon Kean published a letter in the Daily Press where de la Torre's alleged comment to the District consultant in a private meeting was made public for the first time.
On October 15, in a letter in the Daily Press titled "Accusations are politics and lies," de la Torre defended himself against the "outrageous statement" Kean alleged he had made.
The statement, the Councilmember wrote, "is a lie designed to smear my name and reputation. I never made that remark and have stood up against antisemitism and hate all my life."
The following day, the Daily Press published a letter from fellow School board member Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein corroborating his account.
In the letter, Tahvildaran-Jesswein writes that he heard the same account from the consultant, Marci Manikercan, and could "confirm that Jon Kean’s account of this incident is true and accurate."
He writes that in a meeting with Superintendent Ben Drati and de la Torre to discuss the "alarming revelation," de la Torre "did not deny making the comment(s) but explained that he was referring to what he perceived as a problematic 'power dynamic' on the Board."
De la Torre denies the meeting with Drati and Tahvildaran-Jesswein took place. "These are made up stories by my political opponents who I worked against in the last election," de la Torre told The Lookout.
Two days later, Rev. Jim Conn published a letter titled "No trust in de la Torre," where he hopes "the people of Santa Monica will not re-elect de la Torre" and urges the Councilmember to "ask our forgiveness."
In the letter, Conn identifies himself as a Santa Monica resident but fails to mention he is a former mayor who helped found Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR), the backbone of the City's political establishment.
The Daily Press also published letters in defense of de la Torre, including one from Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels, who stated that "I know him to always act and speak with decency and respect."
"In my experience, it would be entirely out of character for the Oscar de la Torre I know to express hurtful comments," Comess-Daniels writes.
At a Council meeting the following week, Councilmember Jesse Zwick asked de la Torre if he was "denying what these three members of our community have come forward to confirm."
"I never said that," de la Torre responded. "I deny ever making those comments. That comment that was made allegedly came from a conversation that I had with a consultant that has a relationship with Jon Kean."
De la Torre also added that "the people that you say are credible are not credible to me. They have opposed me many times on the School Board." ("Council Debates Anti-Semitic Allegation," October 23, 2024).
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The hard-hitting campaign against de la Torre is being led by the Community for Excellent Public schools (CEPS), an advocacy group for public education.
In a letter "Don't Vote for Oscar" published in the Daily Press October 25, CEPS executive committee members former mayor Ted Winterer and Sirinya Matute noted that "rarely has CEPS actively opposed a particular candidate.
"But this year we are making an exception to our normal practice: CEPS strongly opposes Oscar de la Torre’s re-election to the Santa Monica City Council."
With no School Board race to weigh in on, CEPS -- which had raised $57,027 as of October 19 -- has focused its campaign on defeating de la Torre, sending two mailers so far.
The first reads, "One thing we should agree on: leave Oscar de la Torre off your ballot."
"We Gave Him four Years -- He gave us drama and broken promises," reads the second," which hit mail boxes Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Councilmember Davis sent a text message asking voters to "think twice about voting" for de la Torre, noting that he is a plaintiff in the voting rights lawsuit against the City to create voting districts.
The mailers are paid for with contributions from some of the political establishment's leading players, including Davis, a former chair of the SMRR steering committee, who donated $1,250, and former Council Member Terry O'Day, who donated $250.
Kean contributed $250 to CEPS, according to campaign finance disclosure statements, while Tahvildaran-Jesswein, who like Davis is a former SMRR steering committee chair, donated $200.
In addition, $10,000 was donated by Yes on QS, the campaign to approve the school bond placed on the ballot by the School Board.
Tricia Crane, chair of Northeast Neighbors, sent an email to the group's members and friends Thursday accompanied by a copy of a CEPS flyer attacking de la Torre and a list of the group's finance disclosure statement.
"What is apparent is the institutional takeover of our city governance that has gone on for decades," Crane wrote. "Never before has it been so exposed.
"The CEPS flyer illustrates the level of coordination of groups in our city that have controlled our governance and want to maintain that control."
De la Torre, who would become Santa Monica's next mayor if he is relected on November 5, said he will not hit back, but instead will focus on the key issue in next Tuesday's election -- public safety.
"I'm above the negativity," de la Torre said. "We have real problems in the city and issues our residents want us to address.
"These are all desperate moves on the opposition's part because they have lost the public debate. They are not serious about public safety.'
"I'm expecting something everyday, because it's relentless," de la Torre said. "I hope these attacks backfire. It turns (voters) off."
Editor's note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the four establishment Council candidates had donated to CEPS. It was CEPS that expended funds to include their names on campaign mailers.
