By Jorge Casuso
September 5, 2025 -- The City Council on Tuesday will fill six vacancies on the Downtown Board to replace the members it ousted in an unprecedented move two and a half months ago.
The Council will choose from a field of 12 candidates, most of them with ties to City government, including a former mayor, Assemblymember and City Manager who were seated on a temporary basis, and the current head of the Chamber of Commerce.
The Council will permanently fill all six Council-appointed seats on the 13-member Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. (DTSM) board -- three seats with terms that expired on June 30 and three with terms that will expire June 30, 2028.
The seats became vacant after the City Council on June 29 claimed the board that oversees the Central Business District had become dysfuctional. The Board also includes six members chosen by Downtown property owners and a City Manager representative.
Six of the 12 candidates have served on a temporary basis since being appointed minutes after the unprecedented move, including former Mayor Gleam Davis, former Mayor and Assemblymember Richard Bloom and former interim City Manager Elaine Polachek.
Also appointed were Sean Besser, president of the Ocean Park Association Board (OPA); Jonathan Gregory, CEO of an oil and gas production company who started a homeless agency in Houston and Hodge Patterson, CEO of the Santa Monica Family YMCA.
The other six candidates include Judy Kruger, CEO of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce; Alexander Brown, the Chamber's director of Government Affairs, and Jeff Jarow, who has served on the Pier Corporation and Santa Monica Travel and Tourism (SMTT) boards.
The other candidates are Albin Gielicz, a board member of several local civic and business organizations; Thomas Sullivan, who moved to Santa Monica in January to become CEO of the Cayton Children's Museum at Santa Monica Place, and Adam Badawy, who specializes in data driven decision making.
Two of the candidates -- Polachek and Gielicz -- are registered with the City as lobbyists.
Three of the candidates who were ousted in July had been appointed by the City Council a year earlier and were major stakeholders in the Downtown.
Former Boardmember Jon Farzam owns the Shore and Ocean View hotels; Berta Negari runs two property management companies in Santa Monica and her son, Daniel Negari, purchased eight parcels on the Promenade, and Michelle Cardiel has run a company since 2006 that expedites permits.
Councilmember Barry Snell, who made the motion to remove the Council appointed members, said the board had become "completely skewed" toward property owners and that its actions were undermining efforts to revive the city's central core.
"There are deep concerns about how Downtown Santa Monica is run," Snell said, "its relationship with the City, whether it's honoring the terms of its agreement with the City and whether it is performing its obligations."
"There's a small window of opportunity to see that Downtown Santa Monica is reformed, but that's not likely to happen with the current makeup of the board," Snell said.
Mayor Lana Negrete, who cast the lone opposing vote, questioned the "emergency" addressed by Snell's item.
"This doesn't seem like an emergency to me to just tear six people off this board and reappoint people that serve what (Councilmembers) want," she said.
"It doesn't feel fair," said Negrete, who voted in July 2024 to appoint the three board members removed three years before their terms expired. "It's just dangerous, and it undermines community trust."
