THE LOW-DOWN ON THE TOWN Impudent, uncensored account By C. Castle

A Model Crime Ad

We sure were glad we weren't a Dolphin last week.

Imagine being a member of the powerful conservative political consulting firm -- the same firm that brought you Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson and Willie Horton -- and having to come up with a campaign ad touting the public safety record of council candidates Herb Katz and Robert Ross, while blasting that of the three incumbents.

That's no mean task, we figured. As a council member, Katz had voted against adding 20 officers to the police force, and as a newcomer Ross had no public safety record in Santa Monica to run on. (Ross had been a prosecutor and Deputy District Attorney, but now bought and sold industrial real estate, though he assured us not in Santa Monica.)

What's worse, it would be even harder to knock the public safety record of the SMRR incumbents -- Mayor Ken Genser and Council members Michael Feinstein and Richard Bloom. After all, these guys belong to the powerful political organization that gives the cops anything they ask for.

New squad cars? Sure.

Radios? No problem.

A contract that guarantees SMPD remains one of the two highest paid forces around? You bet.

And as if that weren't enough, there's all that overtime that makes Santa Monica's force one of the highest paid on the planet. (Last we checked, 50 officers -- or a quarter of the force -- made more than $100,000 a year, while one officer nearly matched Bill Clinton's $215,000 salary.)

And how could you blast a council that has presided over the lowest crime rate in 30 years? (Never mind that crime is down all over the country; it's dropped more than the national average in Santa Monica.)

So it was a tough task that faced the Dolphin group, and we sure wished we were a fly on the wall of their war room. We can imagine the scene as the consultants pored over a file of clippings about crime in the city.

"Here," we can hear one consultant say, pulling out a clip, "is a front page story about the big shootout on the pier earlier this year. Maybe we can use that."

"I don't know. They ended up catching the bad guys and, besides, no one was killed."

"How 'bout this one," the first consultant says, holding up a second clipping. "This one's about the tourist who was killed a couple of years ago over by the Loews Hotel?"

"Nah, we don't wanna make it look like its unsafe by the Loews. After all, they're paying us the big bucks to come up with these ads."

"Okay.... So why don't we fudge it a little and say there have been murders on the pier? I mean, it's only a couple hundred feet away."

"Not bad. No one will know the difference or bother to look it up. But what do we put on the cover of the flyer? We can't use a headline."

"Boy I don't --- Woooooo. Wait a minute. Wasn't there a Westside rapist a few years back? We can use him. Kinda like a Santa Monica Willie Horton."

"No way. That wouldn't fly in that liberal town. They'd accuse us of being racist, and we'd tick off the black voters SMRR always ignores."

"What about that Latino model we had on retainer for all the Prop KK ads? We could use him."

"Can't. We had to let go of all the models when we filed the last campaign finance disclosure statement and shifted the funding to the council race."

"I guess that leaves us with a white guy then?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure anyone would buy it."

"Wait. Here's a thought. What if instead of using a criminal to scare people into voting, like we did with Willie, we use him to seduce them into voting."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Let's get a model that looks like Brad Pitt. Let's dress him in fashionable black clothes, put a knife in his hand that's not big enough to look dangerous and pose him outside a bedroom window with silky white curtains."

"But he doesn't look like a criminal."

"He's not supposed to. We want him to look like the "dark" mysterious stranger on the cover of one of those cheesy romance novels. We want voters, especially women voters, to identify him with Katz and Ross, who aren't nearly as good looking, even though there is that Bay Watch photo of Ross jogging in his swim trunks. Why, they'd win the election hands down."

"You're a genius."

"That's why I get the big bucks."

Katz Still Backed by Cops (dispelling rumors)

We don't usually write anything denying a rumor. Why with all the rumors that fly around Santa Monica's e-vine, especially during election time....

But we figured it was important to get to the bottom of this one, even though it's like asking someone when he stopped beating his wife.

So we called one of the best sources to set the record straight -- former SMPD Sargent and for more two decades the head of the City's powerful police union, Steven Brackett.

"Has the police union yanked its endorsement of former councilman Herb Katz?" we asked Brackett, who still keeps close tabs on what happens.

"I'm sure they haven't," said Brackett. "Why would they do that? It's totally erroneous.

"There's no way we're going to yank an endorsement," he added. "Absolutely the endorsement is still there for Katz."

End of rumor.

SMRR's Crystal Clear Prediction

It was time to test our new crystal ball, so we decided to check out a pending vote the City Council had delayed. The vote was to lower the size threshold of commercial buildings that required Planning Commission approval from 30,000 square feet.

The council didn't deliberate much on the issue because Mayor Ken Genser was in the hospital and Mayor pro-tem Pam O'Connor was out of town, but it was certain that a lower threshold would be approved.

The question was -- would the council go with staff's recommendation of 7,500 square feet, or opt for Councilman Kevin McKeown's proposal of 5,000 square feet, an option supported by the neighborhood groups? Or would it come up with an entirely different threshold?

So we put on our turban and peered into the crystal ball -- nothing.

Just them, one of our reporters burst into the newsroom and placed a light green flyer on the desk behind the empty ball. From our angle a few lines came into focus, magnified by the curve of the crystal.

"Reduced the threshold of commercial buildings to 5,000 square feet."

That was it! we marveled. That was the answer!! The crystal ball worked!!!

But what was that green flyer that held the prophetic words?

"Reelect Genser, Feinstein and Bloom," the heading read. "After our SMRR-endorsed candidates regained the City Council majority in 1998, they kept their promises."

The page then went on to list all the accomplishments of the SMRR super majority on the council, including lowering the threshold to 5,000 square feet. Seems when SMRR's campaign staff wrote the flyer they didn't count on Genser and O'Connor not being present.

But elect Genser, Feinstein and Bloom and the prophecy will materialize, just like the crystal ball predicted.