Denny Zane Ken Genser 2010
Ken Genser was an irreplaceable warrior. His community leadership was nurtured initially in the fight to preserve his Ocean Park neighborhood and transformed by the rent control battles into a passion for our entire community. Once moved into action by love for the Santa Monica community, he was indefatigable and relentless.
Ken was exceptionally intelligent, analytic, intense, and passionate, simultaneously cherubic and curmudgeonly. During his early days on the City Council, he and I would have regular late night telephone conversations that would last for hours. We would talk past midnight about city issues and strategies for achieving common objectives. Notably stubborn, Ken was nevertheless ready to change his position when the case was made. Initially, he resisted, even strongly objected to the efforts of community members to press the City Council to make a larger and more predictable financial commitment to our schools. But, later, after he felt the case had been made, he became the schools' strongest champion on the Council.
His intellect and his commitment to justice made him the councilmember most relied upon by the Renters' Rights movement to champion affordable housing, by the labor movement to champion a living wage for hotel workers, and by community activists to be willing to stand up to irresponsible development. In fact, in his first term on the City Council, there was only one small commercial development on Wilshire Blvd., at the site of Jerry's Liquor store, that he voted to support. He determined that the project would actually generate less traffic than the current use. (It was never built.)
He was one of a kind. Utterly irreplaceable. I will miss him personally and we will all miss his leadership.