Dear Editor:
Fellow Santa Monicans, you may have missed the all but secret meeting which our City Council set up to receive public input on filling the vacant council seat left by former Mayor Katz. Maybe fifteen members of the public managed, rather resourcefully, to find out about the meeting. I believe that, with the exception of one individual who seemed to say that virtually anything the esteemed council members did to fill the seat would be okay with him, all of those who requested input pointed out that we’ve just had an election and that anyone interested had had an opportunity to run for office. Of those elected, Mr. Katz came in last and just after him – receiving over twelve thousand votes – was Mr. Winterer. The Council’s obvious choice, the seat he so recently nearly won. Ms Susan Hartley, who with over ten thousand votes came in just after Mr. Winterer, endorsed his appointment; graciously saying that each one of the votes she received from the voters of Santa Monica was very precious to her.
Apparently, the majority of our city council doesn’t feel the same way about Santa Monica’s democratic process. They seem to be about to ignore the approximately twenty-three thousand votes noted above in order to appoint some more in-step political crony. Mr. Winterer, you see, strongly supported Prop T to try and get true sustainability and a handle of Santa Monica’s traffic and over development. The council majority is set to reward, I mean appoint, a “community leader” who helped defeat prop T. It is my hope that they will come to realize, that if there is some other dedicated Santa Monican-someone who has done a lot for the city-they will do that worthy individual harm by forever branding them as a Chicago-style, Bogoynevich appointment. Let s/he win the office fair and square by running for it- like Mr. Winterer has.
Cosmo Bua
Santa Monica, CA
