Last Monday evening, the night before the City Council meeting, the Safer Santa Monica Slate was hosted by Northeast Neighbors, one of Santa Monica’s officially recognized Neighborhood Associations for a virtual meet and greet on zoom. Northeast Neighbors is one of three officially recognized Neighborhood Associations that has endorsed candidates this election along with Friends of Sunset Park and Mid-Wilshire Neighbors. All three groups have endorsed the “Safer” Slate of Mayor Phil Brock, Councilmember Oscar de la Torre, John Putnam and Vivian Roknian.
We’re not going to review the entire zoom, which Northeast Neighbors has put online here. You can listen to/watch the meet and greet, download it to your device, or download the text. At least half of it, bit I would guess closer to ⅔ of it, are spent discussing campaign strategy and logistics. Most of what’s left is the candidates hitting some of their regular talking points about the need for more police officers and arguing that the most pressing issues the city is facing were caused by their predecessors on the City Council.
At the start of the zoom, Putnam and Roknian are on the zoom, but they leave about halfway through but after Brock and de la Torre have joined the call.
We’ve transcribed some portions of the event (with time stamps) so you can see the full quotes that we reference in the the piece. We include a timestamp of when the candidates begin speaking and the identifier we use before the transcripted portion in this format: (IDENTIFIER, HOUR:MINUTE) so you can easily scroll to that part of the discussion if you choose. Last, we did not include the names of the people asking questions or interjecting except for Russ Belinsky, who is the head of one of the independent expenditure committees supporting Brock, de la Torre, Putnam and Roknian.
At the very end of the call, Brock and de la Torre are discussing the “get out the vote” efforts of the committees that are supporting their opposition and openly discussing how they want independent expenditure committees that support them to spend their funding. We included Belinsky’s name because he is clearly on the call where this is happening. As the head of Santa Monicans for a Real Positive Future Supporting Brock, De La Torre, Roknian, and Putnam for Council 2024 this is illegal coordination although it’s unlikely any monitoring agency would do more than chide the candidate’s for their sloppiness. (COORDINATION, 2:00)
But that’s not the most controversial part of the recording.
At one point (DIFFERENT SLATES, 1:25) Brock and de la Torre discuss the differences between their slate and their perceived main opposition, the United Democratic Slate of Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell and Natalya Zernitskaya.
De la Torre signals out Hall and Zernitskaya as newcomers to Santa Monica politics, claiming Hall has basically just arrived and says of Zernitskaya, “Natalya…I can’t even pronounce her last name because I haven’t seen her long enough, to know who she really is. I don’t even know where she came from.
Some of these folks. They just come into our community, and we don’t know who really they are, but it looks like they were handpicked. They’re there to follow an agenda.”
While “othering” candidates by pointing out their differences is a tried-and-true, although intentionally divisive, strategy, in this case it actually highlights some of the strengths of theIR opponents.
It’s true that Hall has only lived in Santa Monica for over three years, due in part to his military service record; but he’s been extremely active in that time serving on the board of the Santa Monica Democratic Club, leading the pushback against a Rent Control measure that would have led to higher rents and serving on the Pier Commission.
Zernitskaya has lived in Santa Monica her entire adult life and has served as president of the League of Women Voters, and on the board of various non-profits and city commissions. If de la Torre can’t be bothered to learn to pronounce her name, it says more about him than it does her.
Brock and de la Torre also promise major changes to the government, should their entire slate be elected (CHANGING GOVERNMENT, 1:43).
At first, Brock bragged about removing people from boards and commissions based on their political affiliations in what the Santa Monica Daily Press called a “disorganized circus.”
“We changed many. We’ve changed people on boards and commissions. In June, we slaughtered some commissioners and some board members, and we appointed others who we thought were better suited to the job,” Brock commented. Amongst those removed were Ellis Raskin from the Planning Commission and Ericka Lesley, another opponent in this race, from the Downtown Santa Monica Inc. Board of Directors.
What followed though was an even bigger shock. After Brock griped that he got in trouble for publicly asking for an employee he didn’t like to be fired because the City Council is NOT supposed to weigh in on individual employees according to the City Charter, de la Torre proposed a possible end-run on this rule.
The Council can, by a 5-2 vote, vote to remove the City Manager. Then during the hiring process for a new city manager, could ask the new candidates for manager to pledge to ask the head of every department to resign and re-apply for their position.
“But one thing we can do, and we should look into, is hire a city manager who will make everyone reapply for their jobs,” de la Torre reasoned. “Get everyone. So then we’re not targeting one staff member or another, we’re saying let’s have everybody reapply for their jobs.”
To do this, the Safer Santa Monica slate would need to win all four seats in this election and be joined by one existing Councilmember (likely Vice Mayor Lana Negrete.) Brock offered no pushback to this scenario even though he has supported the current city manager when others have called for his resignation.
The city has been involved in a lawsuit about whether or not it needs to change its elections from the current system to a “district based” system where voters would vote for one local councilmember instead of seven city-wide. The case has gone on for nine years, and de la Torre was originally one of the plaintiffs. Should the city lose the case, not only would it need to change to a district-election system, it would also likely have to pay millions (or more!) in legal fees to the plaintiffs lawyers.
Both de la Torre and Brock state that one of the reasons to vote for their entire slate is so they can have the four votes needed to vote to settle the case (CVRA Case, 1:36). After Brock warns that there’s only so much they can say about a pending legal matter, they make it clear that if they can increase their current council majority they would vote to end the case.
“If we have 4 council members that get elected this time around, we will have 4 votes for district based elections,” de la Torre says. “And that’s something that I’m hopeful for. It would be better for the city of Santa Monica … .and let me just say one thing, that you all should know. Everybody on this call needs to know this.”
One of the first questions is concerning public safety (PUBLIC SAFETY, 0:42). As the meeting took place before last week’s City Council meeting, Brock took the opportunity to scoff at the discussion that would take place the next night in a study session that outlined what could be spent on public safety if Measures K and PSK pass (more on that study session here.)
Brock later responded to a question about traffic safety and made clear that he sees the issue of traffic safety as separate and subordinate to people feeling safe from crime.
Roknian takes things a step further, referencing the efforts of Mayor Rudy Giuliani (not mentioned by name) to improve public safety by embracing zero tolerance policing and the “broken windows” theory based on its refernce in the Malcolm Gladwell book The Tipping Point. The logic is that by strictly enforcing even nuisance laws, future crimes will be eliminated as lawbreakers are prosecuted early. While crime statistics did fall during Giuliani’s time as mayor, it also led to civil rights violations and an over policing of minority communities.
In a follow-up, Gladwell concedes he was wrong about Broken Windows leading to the drop in crime. Crime dropped in New York just as quickly in the 2010’s, well after NYPD had moved away from Broken Windows policing. Gladwell himself says of the crime chapter of the Tipping Point, “It is almost embarrassing to read now.”
PUBLIC SAFETY
0:42
Phil Brock
So we are gonna study, quote, unquote public safety tomorrow night. And maybe some new methods, but I felt that if you need to study public safety at this point, that you had a problem. You absolutely had a problem.
And if you need to study mental health, you perhaps need to make a mental health appointment yourself.
So very simple.
00:44
Phil Brock
Well, that’s been happening in the city for years now. And it’s used by misdirection to answer questions, misdirection to decide policies.
So while we all want safe bike lanes, and we want safe biking,I need safety on the streets for bikers, pedestrians, drivers, businesses in our city.
Very simple. We have to have enough police to make sure…Not only are problem areas downtown, the beaches, etc. But that your neighborhoods are safe. And that has nothing at all to do with bike lanes or anything else. Right now we have a public safety crisis in the city.
…look at the other side. The slate on the other side has now declared they’re all for public safety. And oh, my God, they’re all for 21st century policing! I am too. I want drones. I’m pushing for license plate readers. I’m pushing for cameras.
But nothing replaces an old fashioned officer on a beat, and officers who drive down your alley, an officer who is stopping to see how you’re doing, an officer who can sit in an intersection and watch what’s going on, and give a traffic ticket.
Do you want traffic safety?
It’s not necessarily bike lanes. It’s frankly giving tickets and enforcing existing laws which we didn’t enforce for 4 years. We’re just now starting to enforce trafficSo my position is definitely we need to start enforcing the quality of life immediately.
Vivian Roknian
Yes, I agreed.
There’s actually…there’s a book Tipping Point where it’s discussed specifically that when a society wants to change and start to improve…For example, when they changed and made New York City safer it all started with 1st addressing the smaller laws and making it clear that we’re actually going after all of them.
At the end of the day, our laws should not only apply to us. Our laws need to apply to everybody who’s visiting our city.
Speaking of visiting our city, safety is going to help our entire city also, economically as well.
We need to make it safer for people to feel comfortable, to go out again, to go shopping again, to come, to visit, to enjoy our beautiful city, and so I’m hoping that it turns into a fantastic cycle where we’re able to get our streets safer, and we’re able to afford more police.
And along with that, then we can start reopening up some of these shuttered stores. We have 20% of vacancies in our commercial areas.
With each of those vacancies that’s also a lost hope and a dream of somebody who had some sort of plan, an American dream that just didn’t work out.
And so I think that addressing public safety is not only something that’s important to every one of us, day to day. I think it’s going to really change the future of our city.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SLATES
01:25
Oscar de la Torre
The other side wins if they can convince people of their false narrative. They say, “Hey, look…we represent change, right? Because you know, the incumbents haven’t done anything.”
The reality is that if you vote for the other 4 you’re returning power to the people that have been controlling the City Council for 4 decades.
SMRR’s been in power for all that time. We have 4 years on the city council, and really we got elected…we weren’t even in City Hall for a long time, because of Covid.
So, we started a momentum. There’s definitely a shift. You feel it in the government.
We want more public safety. You see some of the battles that we’re having around the budget. We want more police officers hired. The other side doesn’t want that. We want a better government as well.
You look at some of the issues like district voting, for example, they oppose that. If they have power, they will continue to fight fair elections, you know, and waste taxpayers’ dollars. They spend our taxpayers dollars…if it was their money they wouldn’t do it that way. But a lot of waste, a lot of bad decisions that we are now having to deal with those problems.
And so we need to just make that distinction, you know, and let people know that the group that SMRR that the 4 Council candidates that they are supporting.. the Santa Monica Democratic Club. All these groups, they’re intended to give power back.
And, by the way, some of these folks haven’t even lived in the city long enough to understand the City. Dan Hall has lived in the city 4 or 6 years?
Phil Brock
3. 3 years.
Oscar de la Torre
Natalya…I can’t even pronounce her last name because I haven’t seen her long enough, to know who she really is. I don’t even know where she came from.
Some of these folks. They just come into our community, and we don’t know who really they are, but it looks like they were handpicked. They’re there to follow an agenda.
If they win, they’re gonna be beholden to all those special interests. When we won the 1st time around, we had no endorsements.
The police endorsement which we have now? We didn’t have that. We didn’t have the fire endorsement. We didn’t have any of those endorsements. We’ve earned those endorsements this time around.
The reality is that the 4 candidates were up against. They want to return power to the people that created the problems that we’re dealing with right now.
You know, when people say, “Oh, the incumbents haven’t done anything.” It’s real important that we have a message to respond to that. So I put it in the chat room. I put a couple of suggestions for you all to use.
But ultimately, look, this election is gonna be one by all of you getting involved, by people donating, by people volunteering their time, by people having voting parties.
You know what the other side is doing right now, what I heard? They’re doing what’s called ballot harvesting, but they’re putting a nice name to it. They’re calling it “voting parties.” So bring your ballots to this party. We hang out and we all vote together, and then someone’s gonna collect them and drop them off in the mailbox.
That’s what they’re planning to do. They did it last time effectively. We need to do the same thing. We need to get people to vote early.
CVRA CASE
01:36
Phil Brock
So let me…I’ll caution us, Oscar, because there are only certain things we can say. But we’re still in the middle of a lawsuit that’s been going on for 8 years. 9 years. It’s gone to the Supreme Court has gone to the District Appellate Court. It’s gone back to Superior Court.
We haven’t had a clear majority on the Council to be able to encourage settlement.
I think Oscar and I..you probably know where Oscar and I are.
Oscar
One thing, one thing that’s important here is that…we haven’t had unity on that issue of district elections.
If we have 4 council members that get elected this time around, we will have 4 votes for district based elections. And that’s something that I’m hopeful for. It would be better for the city of Santa Monica … .and let me just say one thing, that you all should know. Everybody on this call needs to know this.
You know, we filed this lawsuit initially to try to attain fair elections for the Pico neighborhood. One thing I learned is that the people in power, Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, the Santa Monica Democratic Club. All these people in what we call the establishment, the reason why they don’t support district elections is because it would give more influence to homeowners.
And so they look at homeowners in a negative way.
Even though they’re all homeowners, Gleam Davis is a homeowner, Caroline Torosis is, Jesse Zwick is. They’re all homeowners, but what they mean by that really is they do not want more conservative in their in their terms.
You know, what the bottom line is? They use all these excuses, all these reasons. But ultimately it’s about power. They do not want to give up power, and they know that in district-based elections.
It’s cheaper to run. It’s harder for money to influence the election, because you have to live in that part of the city, and you have to knock on doors. It takes the money out, takes the money out of politics right?
CHANGING GOVERNMENT
01:43
Phil Brock
We changed many. We’ve changed people on boards and commissions. In June, we slaughtered some commissioners and some board members, and we appointed others who we thought were better suited to the job.
So we do that all the time…We cannot change staff, because we only hire 3 staff members, and you’ve been around long enough to remember that a mayor in 2015 didn’t like someone who was hired. And tried to fire that person. That cost the city a million point two.
So we are not allowed to interfere with any staff members whatsoever in any way, shape or form. In fact, I posted something on…an innocent comment on social media and a response to someone about 5, 6 months ago, and that staff member told the city manager that, “Aha! If I want to sue or if you decide to terminate me, I will sue back because. Mayor Brock said something unkind toward me.”
So we are strictly prohibited from messing with staff.
The only changes we can make…the big change: If we have 5 votes, We can choose the new city manager.
Resident
Godspeed.
Oscar de la Torre
But one thing we can do, and we should look into, is hire a city manager who will make everyone reapply for their jobs. Get everyone. So then we’re not targeting one staff member or another, we’re saying let’s have everybody reapply for their jobs. Because what’s happening here is that these people are accustomed to getting paid high salaries, they feel they are untouchable, and that creates arrogance, and they’re not serving the public the way they
Could.
Phil Brock
You could only do that with department heads, everyone else would be protected by Civil Service.
Oscar de la Torre
Yep. So let’s figure out if we can get all you know. Get the department heads up, you know some new department heads, but at least let them apply for their job. Let them know that.
Phil Brock
And a lot of them are, and a couple of them, for instance, we have at least 2 that are resigning in the next 3 months. They’re taking retirement.
COORDINATION?
02:00
Oscar de la Torre
One of the things that the other side is doing very effectively for the past 40 years is that they have these voter guides. This is from the Santa Monica Democratic Club. Some people they just take this, and they blindly, you know, fill out whatever is there. They vote that way.
Also, I’ve seen people take the Santa Monicans for Renters Voter guide, and they just vote down that way. We need to let people know, “Look, if you want safer streets, you have to vote for the Safer Santa Monica Slate.
That right there is pretty good, because most people right now, that’s on their mind.
We need someone to do this. This is also a very effective thing.
02:01:28.000
Phil Brock
Hopefully, hopefully, one of the IE’s or PAC’s are doing their job. See? I don’t know where the flier Tricia had in her hand…I don’t even know who that’s by.
Or where it’s from because we’re not allowed.
Russ Belinsky
This is Russ Belinsky. I believe you’ve got to be seeing things like what Tricia is holding up. So they’re just literally …they might hit my mailbox today as well. So the A-Team, you’re on the A-Team guys.
