By CHARLES ANDREWS
A REVEALING, IMPORTANT COUNCIL MEETING LAST TUESDAY
A City Council member, JESSE ZWICK, who took a six-figure salary position as an advocate for a housing developer, which he revealed last October just before voting DOWN, along with fellow Council members –
NATALYA ZERNITSKAYA, CAROLINE TOROSIS, DAN HALL
a development plan to restore our historic Civic Auditorium, with THE most insanely qualified group (RPG) of companies and individuals with decades of the highest level of experience and success in the very specialized and competitive concert and music business, with a contract guaranteeing not a penny of investment or risk to the city and the residents, and the four sank that possible deal, why? – to open things up for other possibilities, they said, and because “the numbers don’t add up.”
In case there is any lingering confusion or uncertainty over that ridiculous statement, let me point out: 1) pros this savvy are not going to take on a losing project no matter how much they personally might want it to succeed, that’s not how you beome and stay successful; 2) if RPG decided to abandon the project at any point for any reason, the City of Santa Monica would still own the Civic and any improvements that had been made; 3) if RPG is assuming all costs, how could the numbers not add up? – that’s on RPG if they don’t, not us; 4) what told them “the numbers don’t add up”? – figures they asked the city staff for, about two weeks before, a staff with NO experience in this complex arena and have shown over and over to be comically inadequate with numbers; and 5) what other “opportunities” might there be for that arena, but more specifically, the city land it is sitting on, that most estimates say is worth $20M with the Civic, and $100M with it gone, bulldozed, ready for real estate development, and lots of that “affordable housing” that they salivate over.
AM I BEATING
A dead horse? I have alluded to all this before, but I felt it needed a more thorough vetting. I said all along that the no-sense vote to turn down the best chance to bring the Civic back to life was only a singular example of a driving philosophy among most of our Council members, that dense development is the answer to all our problems, now and future. And that any inconvenience or opposition by residents is just whining by those who don’t grasp the wisdom of their elected officials – some of whom have lived here less than seven years.
You don’t buy my explanation of the Civic vote? Did you forget they were ready to offer it up to the school district a few years ago TO USE AS A GYM? – despite widespread community opposition. Zwick denied he had any conflict of interest and refused to recuse on any votes or discussions on housing, even texting his employer during Council meetings, until the FPPC, Federal Political Practices Commission, ruled otherwise recently, duh. At this week’s council meeting, he read a brief statement saying he would, from now on, recuse himself.
What brought this to a head this week? Sacramento has been bombarding us for several years with bill after bill taking away cities’ zoning and building restrictions and forcing rules suited for developer profit. Hard to fight the state. But our City Council felt those onerous new laws didn’t go far enough and wanted to pass a local regulation that went even farther. Are you serious? No pretense at all anymore of who they are working for. Hint: it ain’t us.
There’s more that happened last Tuesday night that shows the ideologue politician crisis we are burdened with – until the next election – and I’m hoping SMart member HEATHER THOMASON recovers enough from riding out that meeting out until way past midnight, to be able to write a column about it. If not this Friday, probably next. If you care about this great little city and want to understand why things are so awful right now, and how we can fix them, you should faithfully read the SMart column every Friday in The Mirror.
ANOTHER “ARE YOU SERIOUS”
The zombie cultists who still skip down Drumpf’s orange brick road. We know The Donald doesn’t read, but we also know he has plenty of dark characters, like Stephen Miller, whispering in his ear about things they have read. The Orange Man doesn’t need to have read history or even “Mein Kampf” to be so dutifully carrying out the authoritarian/Nazi playbook. But let’s be real: the Nazi’s admitted to adopting a lot from American history and politics. Sad to say, but ask our indigenous people, and they will tell you America has been like this for 500 years. Not what I was taught in school… until I got to college.
Can you believe the President of the United States looked right into the cameras and told his followers that Renee Nicole Good ran over the ICE agent with her car, when we all saw he did not, and we saw that shooter walk casualy and without any apparent injury, down the street. SOMEbody has read Orwell’s “1984” – I’ll paraphrase: “Believe what we tell you, not your lying eyes and ears.” And we all thought that was science fiction when we read it. Zero possibility that it could really happen. I also refer you to Frank Zappa’s 1966 warning, “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
