Stories about City Hall

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March 8, 2006 (Santa Monica Daily Press) Coalition targeting residents' priorities BY CAROLYN SACKARIASON Daily Press Staff Writer CITYWIDE - A grassroots movement is underway that aims to get thousands of people to force change in Santa Monica, particularly in time for the upcoming fall election when three seats will be open on the City Council. Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities, a coalition of businesses and residents that was formed in 2003, hopes to enlist a broad base of people in the coming months to help address some of the biggest problems facing the city. The coalition also will choose and support politicians who appear to be best suited to solve the long-standing issues that have been met in the past with insufficient solutions by City Hall. In the coming months, the coalition's organizers plan to survey each registered voter in Santa Monica via phone to establish what the major issues are. The problems that have topped the list in City Hall-sponsored surveys for the past several years have been homelessness, traffic and crime. The coalition in the spring of 2005 spent more than 20,000 on phone surveys and mailers in an effort to find out what was important to Santa Monicans. The results were that homelessness was the top concern among the residents polled. That's an issue that the coalition hopes to rally around, said Seth Jacobson, a spokesman for the coalition and owner of a public relations firm that has been hired by the organization. The coalition, which has about 50 businesses attached to it and about 250 people involved, is financially backed by the hospitality industry, but it also relies on individual contributions from residents. Organizers will ask residents during the phone surveys if they would like to learn more about the effort and then send them material explaining the coalition's mission and plans. Organizers also will be stationed at frequently visited locations throughout Santa Monica, such as grocery stores, to sign up people. "We hope to have between 5,000 and 6,000 people sign up and be excited around what happens in our city," Jacobson said. "The group will have a life of its own." Jacobson compared the effort to the decades-old Santa Monicans For Renters' Rights (SMRR), which in the 1970s rallied around rent control and formed a grassroots group. The organization, which has a broad base of support throughout the community, has kept a majority on the City Council for most of the last 27 years. The group continues to champion a social and liberal agenda, including protecting renters, workers' wages and promoting slow growth. "Hopefully it will have a life like SMRR did with renters' rights" Jacobson said. "If SMRR can organize a community around renters' rights, we can organize around homelessness." Because of its liberal ideals, SMRR's leadership routinely butts heads with the business community, including many merchants and hotel owners who believe SMRR's policies negatively affect their bottom lines. Residents complain that inaction on certain issues like homelessness and traffic negatively affect their quality of life. Bob Hattoy, a resident who moved here in 2004 and got involved in local politics when City Councilmen Bobby Shriver and Herb Katz were elected, said he envisions Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities to be a diverse group. He added that the formation of the coalition shouldn't be viewed as being adversarial to SMRR, but rather as a collective group that wants to find solutions to quality-of-life issues, as well as prop up individuals who want to be involved in the electoral politics and who may have differing views from the established political party. "I think we are an activist group that is funded differently, by the business community, which I don't have a problem with at all," Hattoy said. "We just want to keep the issues active, relevant. "SMRR is an incredible grassroots organization; they have done a tremendous job ... and ours is a grassroots effort with a private industry, professionalism way about it." Denny Zane, co-founder of SMRR and former mayor, said the organization's success is based on residents, not business. "If they want to be like us, there are two tricks: You need to start 30 years ago and you need to start with small donations, grassroots." The group's members hope to show that it's not just the self-interests of the business community that has concerns, but the citizenry at large. So for the next several months, organizers will rally residents much like they did in years prior. But it's an expensive proposition. Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities spent $12,500 last March to send out a mailer to 40,000 residents, asking them to e-mail their war stories of when they've dealt with City Hall. The mailer also detailed a few positions on which the group stands, including the perceived problem of public drunkenness and the public costs of a recently approved living wage for city employees. The mailer also questioned whether or not the current leadership represents a force of change. Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities and a related group called Santa Monicans for Change spent hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning for candidates and issues in the 2004 election with some results. The goal of Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities now is to build a credible coalition of people who can have an impact on the election. Currently, four of the seven City Council members are supported by SMRR. Three of those seats will be open in November. Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities hopes to select individuals who can successfully run a campaign based on issues that have been identified by residents as their top concerns, and then actually address them effectively. "It's butt-kicking time," Hattoy said. S. Collins Santa Monica

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