The first episode of our “Mayor’s Roundtable” series at Santa Monica Next features Former Mayor Ted Winterer and local activist Chris Guitierrez to discuss what the city can do to protect its residents and the environment during a Trump presidency.
In 2017, Wintermer was mayor at the start of the first Trump presidency. Winterer led Santa Monica’s response focusing on protecting undocumented residents and maintaining local climate action. The city organized meetings, created safety networks, and provided legal referrals to support undocumented residents. Santa Monica also joined the “We Are Still In” initiative with other local and state governments representing 50% of the US GDP, to pledge to continue to reduce carbon emissions.
“Our policy at the time was we were going to “box, not brawl” with Donald Trump,” Winterer explained. “ We did not declare ourselves a sanctuary city because we did not want to draw attention to our efforts, by putting a label on everything even though we were doing much of the same thing that the sanctuary city would do.”
Guitierrez highlighted the need for local climate action, community building, and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles to implement sustainable practices. She also recounted the local efforts and groups that sprung up in response to Trump in 2017.
“I see our effort now is to both protect the vulnerable and protect our vulnerable planet,” she said.
Transcript:
Damien Newton
I’m very excited to be here for our first podcast with former mayor Ted Winterer and with Chris Gutierrez, and we’re just going to get right into it.
So it’s 2025, we’re a couple weeks into the second Trump presidency, and Ted, you are were the choice for our first podcast from our former mayor bullpen that we’re using here, because you were the mayor when President Trump took office for the first time. And since we’re talking about what the city can do to protect its citizens and to continue to be a progressive leader, you seemed like the natural person to lead off with. What did we do in 2017 and what should we be replicating this time around? ,
Ted Winterer
In January 19 of 2017, I was in DC for the US Conference of Mayors, and got out of there as fast as I could that day, so I would not be around for the first inauguration of Donald Trump… which, of course, was not attended by the millions of people he said were there.
I was well aware that we’re going to have to react as a city to the new administration, which was going to be hostile, downright antithetical, to a lot of our values. I think the one of the most important things we did was to deal with our local undocumented population. They were hearing back then, the same cries to remove them from our country as soon as possible from the administration that they’re hearing now.
Clearly this time around, the tenor is even less compassionate, more hostile, but better organized. So, we did a bunch of things. I think what was most important was to actually organize a gathering, a meeting at the Thelma Terry Center at Virginia Ave. Park, which was led by city staff. But the primary speakers were myself and police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks, to let those undocumented residents, and some of them came down from Malibu, because the word it got by word of mouth, right? It was intended for Santa Monica residents, but we opened up the door to anybody that is concerned.
The chief would explain that, “if you are worried about being pulled over by the Santa Monica Police Department for a broken tail light or whatever reason ,that the Santa Monica Police Department will never ask you about your immigration status, will never ask for any citizenship papers, etc, you don’t have to worry about them working hand in club with ICE on the deportations, we will not be assisting ice in any deportation rates.”
We made it very clear that the police department had their backs. They’re going to be treated just the same as our residents who did have citizenship. And then I just helped along with city staff, particularly a wonderful woman named Carla Fantosa who has recently left the city. We created various safety valves for families, particularly those with families where maybe one of the parents was undocumented.
One major question was, “what do you do if you come home and dad’s being hauled away by ICE?” “What if you come home and your kids and both parents are being taken away by ICE?” You created a phone tree network. This is who you call. You call your aunt, whoever, and she’s going to be able to house you.
We created a legal referral network so that people knew what their rights were. We hand out paperwork explain to people what to do in the event of an ICE raid, how to legally challenge any attempts to incarcerate them, and explain this is where you can get some free legal help. That pretty much covers that. That was particularly useful because for so many people, and I think particularly for for undocumented residents, who have to live a little bit below the radar to hear voices from government speak with compassion and kindness to them about their situation. That really resonated with that community.
We’ve got this lunatic at DC who’s telling us we’re horrible people, but in our local government, we’re just like the rest of us, and we have your backs to the best of our ability within, within the limits of the municipality’s ability to resist federal law enforcement.
And it’s still, a grave concern. Even more of a grave concern is that Trump pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords, and has done so for the second time. And the City of Santa Monica became part of a resistance program which was called in. Mayors and governors and legislators from states around the country representing 50% of the of the US is gross domestic. Product. Went to the upcoming Climate Change Conference, you and climate change change conference and bond and to so other countries in the world.
Look, the US itself is pulled out, but 50% of the US is still with you, and we are still going to do local and state efforts to reduce carbon emissions. So don’t give up, right? You shouldn’t just throw in the towel. We all know that the US is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gasses. So if the US is not pulling its weight, why should other countries do so? We wanted to get out there and assure them that we are going to do all we can to reduce our carbon emissions.
And of course, the city has had a very aggressive, sustainable city plan and a climate action and adaptation plan, so we did our part there. It was significant to let the rest of the world know. “Hey, don’t give up.: Hopefully the city will be able to do something like that again. I know this time around, they’re doing much of the same things on the immigration and undocumented residents front.
Our policy at the time was we were going to “box, not brawl” with Donald Trump, right? We did not declare ourselves a sanctuary city because we did not want to draw attention to our efforts, right by putting a label all even though we were doing much of the same thing that the sanctuary city would do.
The concerns are even greater this time about lying below the radar the Trump government. They just, they just went after Chicago and Illinois, right? Those are big targets. We’re a city small, fewer than 100,000 people, so we’re not as big a target, but there’s this guy, Stephen Miller, right? He probably reads Santa Monica news every now and then, just out of curiosity. So we’ve got to be very careful about not poking the bear in ways that have nefarious repercussions for us.
Damien
And Elon Musk, of course, famously likes to retweet the Santa Monica Observer, which is the city’s number one purveyor of misinformation. So that’s a nice feather in our local media hat.
You said a lot of different things that the city can do. I did get to see Mayor Lana Negrete speak last week. Chris, you were there too. I think I was actually standing next to you when she spoke at a rally held by students where they were asking the city to basically do something and do more to protect us and to protect the environment and to protect our undocumented friends and neighbors and to protect our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors, you know, all across the spectrum of different things you could ask for help for.
First off, Mayor Negrete was there, which I wasn’t expecting, not as a reflection of her. I just not used to Mayor showing up to this sort of thing. And she had on a Santa Monica High School sweatshirt. She didn’t get the microphone to say, we’re going to do XYZ, ABC, but she did speak compassionately about the importance of students being able to voice their opinions and how the city should respond to that, and how the city will talk with them, and even work with them on resolutions, and create “a student city council.”
I thought she did a really good job.
You were talking about respect and compassion from a city leader, a government leader, and I heard that from our last week. I wanted to see if, Chris, if you heard the same thing as me and Ted, if you had any other sort of thoughts about that? Because the mayor really is a city council member with extra powers in the city. You know, as far as running the meeting and showing and the symbolic powers, it’s not really like it’s not a strong mayor system.
Chris Gutierrez
It’s not a strong mayor system, but Lana Mayor Negrete did have a strong presence, a kind and supportive presence at the at the walkout last week, on Thursday, the sixth of February.
I was really pleased that she also stepped back to let all the youth speak first and for very long time, and when she did have a chance to speak, it was welcoming, affirming and strengthening for us to know that we’re all looking out for each other.
And with respect to her position, as you’ve already said, she really invited them to stay in good touch with her, as well as her paying attention to what the requests are. And I think the council will duly follow that. I love that Ted started with the challenge to our vulnerable, diverse community, and I think in conjunction with that, with the climate. We don’t have a healthy community without diversity among ourselves and we don’t have a healthy planet without biodiversity being strengthened.
I’ve always been impressed with how Santa Monica can meld those two together, and I see in the second madness of the regime in DC. that will become even stronger. Ted, we look to you so much. I will always remember we began the Climate Corps in 2016 just before the first Trump regime started. And when we had the training, we assured the young people, because even though Trump was going to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
We were ready.
And then 2017 we reaffirmed that. And you all were at the climate mayors, you did what you you said you were going to do. And frankly, climate is a local matter. Yes, we need the macro policies. Yes, we need the investments like the Inflation Reduction Act, investments that are now threatened, and many of us are going to work to protect them. But on clean energy, those get emboldened by national policies, but we did a lot on clean energy. We started in 2018 the Clean Power Alliance, and Santa Monica was one of the foremost agencies in climate action.
Santa Monica helped kick that off, to make that a reality, from the state law office being facilitated to us creating the Clean Power Alliance, and that immediately helped us reduce 17% of our greenhouse gasses. We have equally managed to continue that reduction.We’re at, I think, 35% below our 1990 emissions and that Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, which the city approved in 2019 after we in the community, with city council and leaders. From the staff, we issued climate summits. We had all sorts of engagements.
We helped people realize climate is a personal matter. It isn’t this abstract, elusive thing. It is how you move your body on a bike versus a car, how you concentrate more on a plant based diet. how you have clean energy. How, when you’re getting a new appliance, it might be an electric appliance, like a water heater?
Those are personal decisions. And Ted, I remember the council was also highly promoting transit and with with all sorts of “two for ones.” And while that preceded Trump, it continued throughout, throughout and and we continue that today. So I see our effort now is both on protecting the vulnerable as well as protecting our vulnerable planet and how we all… Hey, we all breathe, we all eat.
We’re all part of nature. So how we work together locally on that is critical, and I’m proud to say, Climate Action Santa Monica, Safe Streets, Alliance, all sorts of organizations are much more intensified. Closing the airport even becomes a significant opportunity for a resilient, stellar, great park. And those are the ways local communities such as Santa Monica…I love your idea of boxing Ted. I think it’s also boxing him in because we are going to stand up for what is a sane and humane community and the way we work together to ensure we all have a healthy planet.
Ted
Chris is absolutely right about all this stuff, but I’ve had some sobering realizations lately about the issue of local carbon emission reductions. The city’s budget is still not fully recovered from the COVID pandemic induced budget cuts. The office of the sustainability and the environment is not staffed to the same levels that it was, and there’s not the money for the grand sort of projects like this SWIP, which is part, major part of the city’s climate mitigation strategy.
Make sure that we have local water supplies for decades to come. So there’s that. And then I’ve been somewhat dismayed by the response of some of the Palisades Fire refugees. I have not met any of the ones from Altadena, but I’ve talked to a lot of ones from the Palisades. I don’t think there’s any self awareness, any connection being made between these fires being caused by climate change?
Maybe it’s not enough for me just to drive a Tesla and feel good when I go tonight, because I drive a Tesla. Maybe I should have been doing more and maybe if I move back and I rebuild, I should be doing more to reduce my climate footprint. Some of the decisions made in the higher levels of government.
I understand Karen Bass has said, “Well, if you want to rebuild your homes, you can still put in those old gas appliances you had, even though the city code says it has to be all electric.” and Gavin Newsom suspended the state requirement to have solar rooftop panels to generate local clean energy. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that at all…the disconnect between the fact that it’s carbon emissions that cause your houses to burn down, so why shouldn’t the next round if you’re going to rebuild this community and make sure those carbon emissions are reduced, I find that very disappointing.
Chris
I do too. Having grown up in Palestinians, I know a lot of friends and family members who lost homes. My sister lost her home completely…everything. I waited about a week before on a family thread that I raised the issue of our climate conditions, and one of my siblings smacked back at me. I said, “No, this is not about politics. This is about physics, and let’s just get real on this.”
Those of us who can pressure leaders…so called leaders…like Bass and Newsom to realize that frankly, if we rebuild the old way…as the LA Times had a good article earlier this week on what we didn’t learn from the Bel Air fires.
I remember those Bel Air fires when I was seven years old standing on top of a chair in my father’s shop, watching those houses burn, and that’s why I’ve always been afraid of fire, and so watching Palisades burn again, and then to not learn those lessons, again. I think that’s where community leadership, local leadership, like Santa Monica’s, really is necessary. We cannot back pedal on this. This is a big test if we miss this opportunity with Palisades. I’m just one voice, but you better bet I’m talking to people that I know that you can’t, we can’t just take the easy road, because the easy road is a road of doom.
Damien
Let’s be honest, there’s probably going to be more climate related disasters in the next four years, and unfortunately, some of them will probably be more local than we would like. I don’t know if we’ll have evacuations inside the city’s borders, like we did with this particular case, where it was very, very close and there’s some businesses that never reopened after evacuations, and there were lots of secondary impacts.
Hopefully, we don’t see anything that has a primary impact in the city. But you’re talking about, how does a city and how does leadership learn from these situations, and arguing that in the meta sense we haven’t learned about thinking about long terms. Does that make it harder you think, for people though, to think locally about this sort of stuff, “What is my plastic bottle versus, you know, having a refillable glass bottle really mean, if we’re not doing anything about these meta issues?
Chris
Community building is number 1-2-3-4, all the way down to number 10, the most important part of climate resiliency. If we don’t build a strong community understanding – both the personal as well and the interpersonal – as well as the city policy work together then, then we, frankly, don’t take good care of each other right now.
I was happy to see how people really reached out during the Palisades fire, and that’s how we have to capitalize. In my conversations with people, on different platforms and in person, sharing knowledge and understanding is critical, but also giving each other a pat on the back for taking some risk and how we model our lives.
I think it does matter, Damien. I just think it’s harder sometimes to feel that it would matter, but it’s even more important. You know, we had a big garden gathering last week on herbal plants and native plants, and I was impressed that there were like 45-50 people at the community garden on Saturday. And I know that was not just the workshop people wanted to be together. People wanted to be doing good work. We had lots of volunteers come out when we didn’t even expect them. So I think community building is essential to how we approach these problems together.
Ted
To your point, Damien, you’re talking about people trying to acknowledge that little decisions they make on a daily basis do have significance, right?
We’re out of the Paris Climate Accords. The world’s going to hell on a handcart. Why does it make a difference if I am using plastic water bottles that are made from fossil fuels, as opposed to using something more sustainable that quenches my thirst on a regular basis. There’s that old expression about death by 1000 paper cuts.
People need to understand each one of those daily decisions is a paper cut into the future of our planet. So, don’t look for other people to do things. We all need to do things at the same time. I’ve been a climate activist for years. Our house, we’ve got EV panels. We had a solar thermal panel situation. I’ve been trying to electrify my house as the old gas appliances go out of commission. We placed our dryer with an electric dryer, etc. Hot water heater is on the skids. The heat is on the skids.
I’ve been trying to get through various state agencies. The first one that’s called the switches on to try to get contractors to do these jobs. None of them ever came by and then they ghosted me. I went to a new organization. Signed up with them last summer. I still do not have, I still do not have a heat pump or water heater installed. I still don’t have the split system, a track system that run on heat pumps installed.
It’s a little frustrating when you are really trying to do the right thing. And somehow, the Byzantine process that’s been constructed by the government to get these rebates and find these contractors, it’s getting in its own way. I think that’s something the state and the cities need to take a look at. Why do we make it so hard for people who really want to do the right thing? Because I guarantee you, 90% of the people in my situation would have gone, well, screw it. I just got a gas water heater.
Chris
Exactly. I know the Clean Power Alliance is trying to put together a one stop shop to that and have a climate, excuse me, energy efficient advisor to make those…I don’t know how that’s working yet. I don’t know if it’s gotten off the ground very much, but Ted, it sounds like a really good thing. I can connect you to see if we can push on that. You just said it was the Byzantine structures we established from more than 150 years ago. They are wearing us down, which is all the more reason undoing them piece by piece, however small it might feel, is critical.
I’ve been without a car since 98, my husband since 83-84. In the last century, that seems like such a boutique thing, but it’s not. People are seeing other people reject a kind of life that is detrimental, not just to one’s own health, but to climate health.
We’re at, we’re at a precipice – 89 seconds to midnight. That’s what the doomsday clock was moved to a couple of weeks ago. And that’s not just about nuclear weapons, that’s about climate change, that’s about all sorts of anthropogenic problems that we humans have caused. I love that. The same brain and consciousness that gets us into this trouble is also one that can create the Sistine Chapel and create the aqueducts of Rome, or…Notre Dame has now been restored. Our great park could be one of those.
That’s where I think the stamina the city needs to have with us as community leaders is critical. I know young people are looking at us. We saw that on Thursday. That wasn’t just a rally for little things. That was a rally for big things in little steps.
Damien
We have probably about five minutes left in our goal time for this podcast. Do either of you see things the city could be doing that it’s not doing yet, or maybe that are in the works that they should focus on? “Oh my goodness, there’s this terrible, scary president and administration that seems to be tromping around unchecked. What can we do to sort of bubble wrap our own city, that they’re either said that they either should be doing and aren’t yet, or are talking about doing, but maybe haven’t fleshed out completely?”
Ted
On the immigration and our undocumented residents, from everything I can tell, the city is doing everything we decided to do back in 2017…doing it a little bit more cautiously. But there was that rally last week, and they have 10,000 of those little red cards that they handed out at the student rally. My son gave it to someone who was concerned might be at risk. So they’re doing all that.
But as we mentioned, trying not to poke the bear in DC, on the climate front, I have not heard anything that is similar to that. We are still in the pledge that went around in 2017, I don’t know whether that is despair or, “oh my gosh, we’re doing this all over again.”
It was a lot of work, but I have had the idea today that maybe we should be doing something to the same effect locally. There are 88 cities in LA County and Santa Monica could be in a position to try to bring along the City of LA and the City of Long Beach. The two biggest cities in the county, and any other cities in the county that do have a climate strategy that do have a plan to reduce their emissions and put that into a larger group that says, “Well, here we are in the largest county in the country, both geographically and by population, and we are going to still do our bit to try to reduce climate missions, the Trump administration be damned.”
That would be a challenge to our San Monica leaders today to try to put something like that together. We have a local group that says that we are still going to be doing our part.
Chris
Ted hit the mark on both of those. The only thing I would add to those is that’s where I think community heft will be really important to ask to help our newer council members to take that step. And because they have past practices to see how that is vital. The fires now call us to do it with renewed energy, in a way that can really assert some hopefulness, however daunting it may feel. Also, when it comes to protecting the vulnerable, I think there’s more of a sensitivity.
I see this time around among younger and regular community folks. I was at a vigil last week, and not, not the youth vigil. I was at another one, and it was striking how people were feeling more concerned about other people because they feel the hits of this new regime, this new Trump administration, being much colder, and we can feel it coming down on many fronts. The community with the city can make these stands in a very positive way.
I don’t know what that means in terms of maybe putting out signage and banners. We just celebrated 30 years of sustainable city leadership. So I think renewing that in a vital way would be really precious and but I would also note on a more modest, but Empower powering way the permitting, yes, we all need to work with the city on how do they facilitate permitting and in ways to get those changes made when it’s a home issue or it’s a business issue.
Damien
Well, thank you both for your time today. If you’re listening with us all the way through. Make sure to tell your friends and neighbors about this podcast. I think we’re going to have Gleam Davis be the co-host on the next one.
So I look forward to that probably end of the month. And of course, while we’ll be certainly talking about President Trump and what Santa Monica can do a lot, I imagine in a lot of them, hopefully, maybe everything’s going to calm down enough that this will be our last one focused on that. But if not Ted, you’re going to be our go to for this one.
Ted
Yeah. Well, as we all could tell, it’s different this time around than before, there was a lot of ugly rhetoric, but it was sort of run like the Keystone Cops, right? They kept stepping on their own feet. They seem to have a much more deliberate and even more spiteful strategy this time around, and we can only hope that the courts will do what they can to slow them down. And more appallingly, we can hope that the presidential administration recognizes that the courts do have authority over them. That’s the really terrifying part.
I keep telling people, look, we’ve lived through the Northridge earthquake. We’ve lived through COVID. We’ve lived through 9-11. There’s always been these existential moments in recent history, where we thought life as we know it is coming to an end. We’re in the middle of one of those. Now let’s try to be strong and cautiously optimistic and persevere. Persevere through these…at least these next two years, and hopefully we can take back at least one half of Congress and at least throttle down some of this stuff. But it’s going to be tough sledding for a couple of years.
Chris
It will be, but I think it really puts the test to “We, the people.” That’s not a slogan, that’s a commitment.
Damien
All right, what a good ending that line was.
