If you’ve followed me at all over the past four years, the one thing you likely know is that I ran for office in Santa Monica to play a part in solving our region’s dire housing crisis. If you’ve heard me say one thing, it’s that housing scarcity may drive homeowner property values and landlord profits, but it hurts communities: from an ever-rising tide of homelessness to an inability for young people and families to put down roots in our community, from soul-crushing car commutes for working people to the traffic and air pollution those long trips create.
More housing won’t solve everything, of course — but I remain convinced we can’t solve any of our biggest problems without it.
While serving on City Council can often feel like a full-time job, its symbolic level of compensation requires nearly all of us who serve —unless retired or somehow otherwise able to afford to live in Santa Monica without an income — to work full-time in other capacities. When the opportunity recently arose to pursue my passions full-time at the Housing Action Coalition (HAC), a nonprofit organization that advocates for building more homes at all levels of affordability, I was eager to work for an organization that so closely aligned with my values. But I was also extremely careful to ensure my work as an advocate and my service as an elected official would remain entirely separate.
Here’s what I did to make that separation real and durable:
- I consulted with attorneys at both the City of Santa Monica and my new employer before accepting the position.
- I secured an agreement that neither I nor HAC would do any work in or related to the City of Santa Monica throughout my time on City Council.
- I negotiated a flat salary, with no bonuses, incentives, or compensation tied to housing production anywhere — and certainly not in Santa Monica.
Despite these safeguards, some critics have decided to make political hay out of nearly every vote I have taken since accepting this position — even on policy matters entirely unrelated to housing production. That’s because their issue, at the end of the day, isn’t really about ethics or conflicts of interest. It’s that they fundamentally disagree with the values I stand for.
If I worked for an environmental nonprofit, there would not be a similar chorus demanding I recuse myself from all votes affecting our climate. If I owned a small business, no one would say I couldn’t vote on any issue touching the local economy. And as a homeowner, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that my financial stake in the community makes me unfit to serve as an elected official.
The real issue is that I believe — deeply and unapologetically — that Santa Monica must build more homes if it is to fulfill its promise as a truly progressive, inclusive city.
What I know in my heart is that I’ve never taken a single vote with any thought other than what’s best for Santa Monica — the city where I grew up, and where my wife and I are raising our two young children. That commitment will not change, no matter how loudly others misrepresent my motives.
Out of an abundance of caution, I’ve also volunteered to take additional steps to eliminate any possible ethical uncertainty. I’ve asked the City Attorney to seek formal guidance from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) — the state agency that governs conflicts of interest for local officials — and I am making public all the facts of that inquiry. And while I await the commission’s written advice, I am voluntarily abstaining from any votes that touch upon the advocacy areas of my nonprofit employer.
I am taking these extra steps because the people of Santa Monica deserve the utmost honesty and transparency from their elected officials. That’s what I’ve always practiced, and that’s what I’ll continue to deliver.
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