Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322 pp.
The Core Ideology
". . . Local activists generally credited Zane with the energy behind organizing CED, the Santa Monica Fair Housing Alliance, and the city's Democratic Club into the Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR) coalition and with masterminding SMRR's 1979 electoral victories. Zane himself was elected to a four-year city council term in 1981 . . .
". . . James Conn, for example, worked in the civil rights and antiwar movements as a student in the 1960s, became an active Methodist minister and community organizer in the 1970s, was deep into SMRR politics by the decade's end, and was elected to the city council at the same time as Zane.
". . .
". . . Derek Shearer went a step further. "I never mind being called a conservative. Santa Monica is an almost uniquely balanced city and we want to conserve it . . . Most city activists wanted to preserve the municipal pier against development as both a monument to the city's small town past and a reminder of what could be lost through growth and urbanization. They gave considerable support to parks, pedestrian walkways, and the arts, according to Dennis Zane, "to make the life of people better, more inviting, more community-oriented; the purpose of green space and art is to promote that kind of sense of community. Other ways to promote that sense of community included rent control as a means of protecting the current population mix against further gentrification, a moratorium on new development to preserve the residential and commercial balance, and strict environmental guidelines to safeguard local ecology. Relatedly, Santa Monica leftists supported neighborhood organizations and voluntary groups. Participation in them, said community liaison officer Vivian Rothstein, "builds community identification" and helps people "to know their neighbors." The organizations and groups were also viewed as political levers that neighbors could use to preserve the unique qualities of their particular section of the city. "Santa Monica's biggest problem," Ruth Yanatta Goldway stated, "is that it is so desirable that people still want to develop it." [1982 interviews] p. 73
". . .
"Goldway told this story: "There was a bookstore on Main Street which was forced out by the landlord because it was supportive of the community organization. Well, it wasn't started through the community organization but the people who started it were clearly part of the community organization and there was a great deal of community support for it and fundraising for it; and they helped it when it moved to another location . . . It was a center for various meetings and a wonderful place. Unfortunately, the new location made it impossible for it to survive . . ." p. 74
". . . Derek Shearer capsulized that vision in describing his own quality of life: "In our hometown of Santa Monica, California, my family shops at Co-Opportunity, a food cooperative, where we save 10 percent to 20 percent on our monthly bill, purchase healthy food, and see our friends while we shop. Our children attend the Santa Monica Alternative School (SMASH), which is a public school, but run in a democratic manner with student and parent participation. I shop for books at Midnight Special or Papa Bach, both run by political activists. The Liberty Hill Foundation, located in the nearby Ocean Park Church, gives donations to a variety of community groups in the Los Angeles area. We take our children to hear benefit concerts by artists like Pete Seeger for In These Times or Jackson Brown to raise money for the statewide nuclear freeze campaign. Mother Jones, Working Papers, democracy, and other publications arrive at our house with news and political information."" p. 75
". . . James Conn talked about "the leadership development process" whereby experienced leaders put new people into responsible roles that challenged them and cultivated their entrepreneurial skills to continue to "energize and enable and empower" more citizens." p. 76
4 Of Principles and Politics
Rent Control Wars
"In 1977, Tom Hayden and the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED) were not particularly interested in pursuing the principle of human scale community through the politics of rent control. On the one hand, Hayden's own version of "small is beautiful" focussed mainly on solar energy as a decentralized technology and an alternative to the concentrated power of oil cartels. On the other hand, Hayden's solution to the housing crisis in California had little to do with human scale community or rent control. Hayden supported extensive building projects to create new low cost housing and public housing. Hayden and CED were latecomers to the tenant activism that was emerging throughout California that year.
". . . A group of Santa Monica seniors . . . wrote, petitioned, and organized a rent control initiative that ultimately became Proposition P on the June 1978 ballot. Their initiative was defeated by a 56 percent to 44 percent margin in the same election that brought California its famous Proposition 13 tax reduction measure. Apparently many people voted against the rent control initiative based on tenants' hopes and landlords' promises that lower property taxes would be converted into lower rents.
"Tenants' hopes were quickly shattered on the altar of landlords' profits. An overheated real estate market combined with the confidence of electoral victory prompted landlords to raise rents, convert apartments to condominiums, and sell out to speculators and big developers. More than 70 percent of the population, Santa Monica tenants were incensed. The battle lines were more clearly drawn than ever before and the growth machine was the enemy." p. 95
". . . in late, 1978, the SMRR coalition was born.
"The SMRR people oversaw the drafting of a new rent control initiative that was to be place on the municipal ballot in the April 1979 election . . .
". . . SMRR interviewed possible candidates pledged to support rent control and then endorsed the candidacies of Ruth Yanatta Goldway and William Jennings. Goldway was a consumer advocate who had narrowly lost the Democratic primary for a State Assembly nomination in 1977. Although not a member of CED, she had gained considerable support from CED in her State Assembly race and was associated with it on a broad range of issues . . ." p. 97
"If the April 1979 election was ever in doubt, the Santa Monica growth machine eradicated all uncertainties. Between 1977 and 1979, more than 2,000 Santa Monica rental units were demolished or converted to condominiums. But just months before the April 1979 election, the city council and the city planning commission gave out tentative tract maps for the asking. This allowed landlords and developers the right to demolish or convert their units before Proposition A was submitted to the voters. What followed became known locally as "the demolition derby." Tenants were suddenly evicted en masse; buildings were torn down; new luxury developments were announced . . . some 3,000 additional units were threatened by the city's largesse with permits. The darker side of the marketplace was illuminated and SMRR campaigners had the political savvy to organize in most of the affected buildings.
"They accumulated enough voter support to win Proposition A by a 54 percent to 46 percent margin - a 20 percent turn around from the previous rent control initiative. SMRR also elected its two city council candidates by comfortable margins . . . In July, 1979, SMRR ran five candidates for the five seats on the new rent control board and won every single contest. That November, SMRR successfully ran a rent control candidate to fill a city council seat vacated by an ailing opposition member, giving the coalition control of three out of seven council seats; SMRR also engineered the defeat of a so-called fair rent initiative put up by the landlords to gut rent control . . . " p. 98
". . .
"The SMRR coalition's most important and decisive victory came in April 1981, when its four candidates for the city council won their races. Overall, the coalition candidates won by an impressive 57 percent to 43 percent margin . . ." p. 99
"Shearer, who co-managed the 1981 campaign stated that SMRR had learned from the previous elections the importance of avoiding complicated theories and arguments in making one's case to the voters . . ." p. 100
". . .
"The result was that SMRR began to transform itself from a fairly informal coalition into a formal organization with rules, regular forums for deciding issues, and exhaustive and exhausting procedures for candidate selection. And SMRR did indeed come up with a politically wise slate of candidates. It chose Dennis Zane, a CED member also involved with SMFHA, the Democratic Club, community groups in the Ocean Park neighborhood, and SMRR itself . . . Finally, it chose James Conn, the Ocean Park minister whose church had become a center for peace activism and other progressive causes for a range of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles groups . . ." p. 101 and 102
"On the outskirts of this emerging hierarchy loomed the figure of Tom Hayden. His role in the rent control and electoral contests was shadowy. By and large, he was a late and ambivalent supporter of SMRR politics . . . " p. 103
". . .
"The Santa Monica CED chapter and the Democratic Club, for example, were crucial miniforums that brought together a diversity of activists . . . They were augmented by SMRR . . . In addition, Santa Monica's major neighborhood organizations - the Ocean Park Community Organization (OPCO) and the Pico Neighborhood Association (PNA), later to be joined by the Mid-City Neighbors (MCN) - held regular block meetings, neighborhood forums, and yearly congresses that brought together resident, activists, and leaders to chart some values, priorities and strategies." p. 105
". . .
". . . [The left wing council members] also appointed new professionals to key city posts in a way of consolidating their authority. One of their most important appointments was putting John Alschuler in the city manager's office. A former advisor to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during the Carter administration and the assistant city manager of a progressive government in Hartford, Connecticut, Alschuler brought to Santa Monica an extreme self-consciousness about securing local autonomy . . . Alshuler's job made him the executive officer of approximately 1,400 city employees; and one of his tasks was to see that the city staff, which he characterized as being "as talented a group of people as there is in the country in a government this size," worked closely and smoothly with the city council to carry out council policies. His managerial approach was to mediate council-staff relations. He educated councilmembers to provide "clear direction," which is what the bureaucrats, who he said are "among the more maligned" in American society, as dedicated professionals who "are in public service because they want in fact to provide service to the public."
"Alschuler's approach bore fruit throughout city government. Assistant city planner Christopher Rudd, who worked under the old conservative councils as well as the new radical one, said that his division "really supports what the council's been doing" in terms of giving clear direction, facilitating planning, and actually implementing some of the quality of life proposals recommended but ignored in the 1970s. Most impressively, the city council radicals were able to develop amiable relations with city police and firefighters. "We treat them decently as public employees," stated Derek Schearer. The city council made an effort to improve police and firefighter's working conditions and salaries, facilitate dialogue with citizen groups concerned with public safety and hire a city attorney who would respect them and work well with them . . . " p. 110
". . .
"When the city hall radicals enacted controversial laws and policies, they generally relied on three devices to ensure that their will would be done rather than "done in" by superior government agencies. First, they appointed the citizen task forces and commissions that provided popular support, procedural compliance and democratic legitimacy for council actions. Anyone seeking to overturn their actions were consequently in the position of being accused of usurping local democratic authority. Second, they commissioned professional studies by progressive policy organizations that pinpointed historical and legal precedents for council decisions and provided clues to potential barriers to their enforcement. Thus the SMRR councilmembers were careful to shape their policies in ways that maximized the chances that no one would be able to overturn them on procedural or legal grounds. Third, the radical politicians relied on the professional expertise of the city manager and the city attorney to defend their policies before state agencies and the judicial system. These devices usually worked.
"All three devices were employed when the city council majority decided to take control of development in Santa Monica. It appointed a commercial and industrial task force membered by citizens who produced a lengthy set of recommendations on zoning and controlled development. It paid the firm of Hamilton, Rabinowitz, and Stanton, Inc. to produce several hundred-page studies, entitled Review of California Development Fee Policies and Review of Existing Santa Monica Development Fees, that provided legitimacy to council policies. And it called on the city attorney to develop a defensible legal model for negotiating development agreements and on the city manager to put together a professional team to negotiate the agreements. Consequently, when the city council enacted Ordinance no. 1220 and later revisions intended "to ensure that development is consistent with public peace, health, and safety," it was able to implement its human scale approach to Santa Monica's future despite vociferous protests and legal actions taken by the opposition."
"The SMRR councilmembers also made a conscientious effort to extend their authority and impact beyond their limited tenure in political office. Their model was the structure of rent control, which was based on changing the city charter (which could not be easily undone) and creating a semiautonomous agency, the rent control board (which could function regardless of who runs city government). The radicals took advantage of their commitment and energy to rewrite the various elements that made up the city charter and thereby left their imprint on the legal framework for future city policies. They also created several quasi-governmental, non-profit corporations which would provide institutional support for SMRR policies for the foreseeable future . . . "There are not a lot of old agreements that were entered into in the past that bind the city in the future; this city council has entered into a number of contracts that to some extent bind future city councils . . . "
". . . Dennis Zane made this point graphically: "Once we institutionalize some of the programs that are in place, it will be a significant political peril for anybody to try to fuck with them." p. 112
"In theory, the greatest threat to the radicals' power was the ability of local business people to put pressure on them as has happened in many other cities where grassroots movements come to power. Such pressure usually takes the form of offering the carrot of new investment if politicians cooperate to provide a healthy business climate or the stick of disinvestment if people in government act contrary to what business elites consider the community's best interest . . . "
". . .
"The main economic restraint on city council policy was a projected revenue-expenditure gap. California's middle class taxpayers distrusted government authority and certainly did not want to pay into general revenue coffers that allowed governors a blank check. Thus they passed the Proposition 13 tax reduction measure that made it extremely difficult for municipalities to raise local revenues. But the SMRR politicians were committed to expenditures that would maintain and expand social services, upgrade the salaries and benefits of city employees, facilitate affordable housing for all city residents, fund neighborhood projects, enhance the local environment, and so forth. The radicals who took power were not certain that they could sustain current expenditure levels much less increase them to subsidize desired policies. Their approach to this fiscal dilemma was to find ways to enhance revenues without raising property taxes while changing expenditure priorities."
"For the most part, the SMRR councilmembers looked to their appointed professionals to find ways to enhance revenues, and the professionals went to work with considerable zest. City staff people unearthed $330,000 that had been on deposit with the state at only 6 percent interest. Staff investigated city business license fees, development fees, lease agreements, and contract arrangements to discover that Santa Monica charged much less for its services than nearby cities of comparable size. Staff also did cost-benefit analyses that show that the city would have more disposable revenues if it stopped contracting out legal work and increased the city's legal personnel, Staff proposed ways to generate more income from city-owned enterprises, from the local tourist industry, from limited partnerships with the private sector from municipal airport property, and from hidden pockets of money in county, state, and federal governments. From the left's viewpoint, fiscal responsibility, efficiency, and creativity meant more disposable revenue for worthwhile projects." p. 113
"The council majority also made some decisions on spending priorities. James Conn mentioned how the SMRR politicians brought to the city government "a new consciousness of the financial and economic impact of decisions that are made by the city and how they affect people in the city as a whole, in contrast to how they merely affect the business community." Part of that new consciousness was manifested in early budget decisions. "The first budget we received," Conn noted, "was an equipment budget; and we cut out all the equipment and put programs in." The program priorities shifted expenditures, for example, from subsidies to the Chamber of Commerce to support for neighborhood projects. As a result of the SMRR council's efforts to close the revenue-expenditure gap, Santa Monica was one of the few California cities in the the early 1980s that upgraded social services; almost every other city in the state was forced to make cutbacks.
"The SMRR politicians, in short, practiced what is conventionally considered to be "good government." They ran city government like a business, making sure that the ledgers balanced. But "good government" and SMRR's core principles did not always complement one another. Human scale community and a finely tuned government bureaucracy do not necessarily mix, the one being founded on interpersonal relationships and the other on impersonal procedures, laws, and accountant reports. Participatory democracy may be more symbolic than tangible when politicians rely too heavily on professional experts in public administration, law, and policy. And one class society does not fare particularly well when fiscal responsibility means cutting deals with developers or enhancing revenues by leasing city land to the highest bidder rather than investing in the economic independence of all citizens. The tendency of Santa Monica activists, SMRR leaders, and city hall radicals was to practice political pragmatism without giving serious thought as to whether it works in behalf of basic principles." p. 114