The Safer Santa Monica Slate of Mayor Phil Brock, Councilmember Oscar de la Torre, and running mates Vivian Roknian and John Putnam may have just officially announced their slate last week, but the quartet is off and running. With just nine weeks until election day, the slate has grabbed the endorsements of two new political groups and launched a video outlining their platform.
In the YouTube video, Brock takes the lead, appearing natural on camera after years of doing videocasts for the Santa Monica Mirror and City of Santa Monica itself. All four candidates take turns speaking to outline the slate’s platform. The video only takes about four and a half minutes to watch, but if you can’t watch it where you are, here are the highlights.
Roknian kicks off the discussion by asking, “did you know that we have only increased our police force by 6.5% in twenty years?” As the slate mentions several times that increasing the number of sworn officers is one of their policy promises. While this number may sound low at first glance, there are a number of reasons that put it in a different context.
First, the percent increase in the number of new police nationwide is actually lower than the growth rate in Santa Monica. In 2022, there were 708,001 sworn police officers across the country. In 2002, the number was 705,871. Nationally, that’s less than a half of a percent increase.
The population of Santa Monica is growing at roughly the same pace as the size of the police department. In 2000, the census bureau estimated Santa Monica’s population at 84,100 people. The census’ estimate from May of this year is 88,925. If you do the math, the estimated population growth is 6.7%. Given that the SMPD has funding for almost two dozen more officers in the current fiscal year and that the population of the city has been slowly falling in recent years, we can expect that next year at this time the growth of the number of police will exceed the population growth of the city regardless of who is elected.
The slate states its support for Rent Control, which has long been a popular issue in the city of Santa Monica. Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, the local political party that often has a majority on the City Council has chosen a different slate of candidates. But the Safer Santa Monica slate goes a step further promising voters that they will approve programs that encourage apartment renters to become property owners.
De la Torre goes on to promise that the slate will support affordable two and three bedroom apartments to help families move into the city instead of just focusing on smaller two and single bedroom apartments.
The details of what these programs would be are not in this video and are likely to be rolled out as the campaign moves along.
Moving on to the homeless crisis, de la Torre kicks things off by arguing that over ¾ of Santa Monica’s homeless are either experiencing a mental health crisis or battling drug addiction. This statistic is cited in the city’s 2023 Emergency Resolution, but is based on statewide statistics from a 2019 report by the California Policy Lab. These statistics are likely not accurate for the City of Santa Monica.
The slate goes on to outline their positions on how they can keep homeless people from being in Santa Monica including changing Metro policy on people exiting buses and trains at the end of the night and ending the county’s one hour a week harm reduction program in Reed Park. Of course, the City Council cannot force changes at Metro or L.A. County, but can work with the transit agency and county government to improve services.
Putnam goes on to state support for transitional and supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness but there’s a couple of “catches.” First, Putnam outlines the places that these developments shouldn’t be – near schools, parks and other places where people congregate. Second, Roknian points out the regional nature of the crisis and reminds voters that housing alone won’t solve homelessness.
When it comes to supporting local business, de la Torre offers the first specific: hire more police. De la Torre argues that shoplifting has increased 14% year over year between 2014 and 2023 in Santa Monica. If you do the arithmetic, that would be a 371% increase in shoplifting over a decade. I have been unable to find a source for that statistic.
Of course, divining an exact statistic for petty theft growth is difficult because many businesses won’t report smaller thefts because of the impact it could have on their insurance prices.
Putnam then argues that the city erred when it tore down a downtown parking lot, Parking Structure 3, to build supportive housing. The city approved this development in 2019, six years after the completion of a different nearby parking structure that was built specifically to replace these spaces as Structure 3 was old and falling apart.
The endorsements come from Santa Monicans United and Hospitality Santa Monica, both groups formed in the past year to advocate for more police and a “law and order” approach to public safety.
“Violent crimes and property crimes in Santa Monica have increased dramatically during the past decade,” stated Ashley Oelsen, with Santa Monicans United.
“Our City’s population keeps growing, but city leaders have only marginally increased its police force, hampering crime prevention efforts and putting our communities at risk.”
