MY WRITE — While I was away in jolly old England for the last two weeks, the mice came out to play.
City Council voted 4 to 0 to end a decade of pony rides at the Sunday Main Street Farmers’ Market. Ted Winterer, Gleam Davis, Kevin McKeown and Tony Vazquez cast their vote around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning (Sept 10).
Left wing gadfly Marcy Winograd had protested the pony rides and petting zoo run by Tawni Angel. “Pony whisperer” Winograd claimed Angel’s animals were overworked, mistreated and unhappy.
A number of veterinary and animal rights organization cleared Angel of mistreatment and Market Supervisor Laura Avery even vouched for Angel’s responsible care for her animals. Winograd, who is a school teacher, made the big mistake of projecting human emotions on animals.
If I were Angel, I’d sue. However, if Winograd’s attorney husband were to become involved, Angel would be lawyered ad infinitum.
McKeown called Winograd’s attacks, “unfair and unkind.” He was “disturbed, though, by the demonization of Tawni Angel and her ponies.’ He said he was wary of a process which, “gives power to the attack-based protest against an individual.” So am I.
Instead of standing up to ignorance, councilmembers Davis and Winterer, who agendized the item, said that their decision has nothing to do with Angel, but with the “protest” surrounding the issue.
Yes, Virginia, this is the sorry specter of four council persons using “protest” as reason to cave on Winograd’s bullying. Too bad “protest” wasn’t used as an excuse to vote down the Hines/Bergamot project in February.
Council’s voting results in a loss of enrichment and an enhanced community experience way to frequently. Four years ago, it purged the Santa Monica Farmers’ Markets of long time, favorite non-food vendors. This time they eliminated an educational experience for children to be around and near farm animals.
Never fear. The Sunday morning Brentwood Farmers’ Market on Gretna Green Way has a pony ride and petting zoo. Ponies get to carry their young charges on a footpath next to the Brentwood Country Club. The petting zoo is a delight. But, don’t tell Winograd. She’ll go up there and incite another witch hunt.
Pedestrian Action Plan is more nonsense
A community meeting on the new “Pedestrian Action Plan” (PAP) plan took place September 23 at the main library.
The PAP is another nonsensical planning concept that tries to convert arterials and streets used to transport folks to/from home, work, school and shopping into a multi-purpose recreational facilities.
Trying to co-ordinate equal access for vehicular traffic with bicycling and walking activities on city streets has been an insurmountable challenge for the planning geniuses in City Hall. Efforts so far have been failures.
At last Tuesday’s meeting, pedestrians complained about drivers cutting them off in crosswalks, especially when the vehicle is turning. I was nearly run down by a left-turning motorist at Euclid Street and Wilshire Boulevard a couple of Sundays ago. People drive recklessly and inconsiderately because they can get away with it.
Wider sidewalks, landscaping and street beautification will do nothing to solve this problem, but a police motor officer with a cite book will. Let’s face it, there’s just not enough enforcement.
There is resistance at City Hall to stepping up enforcement or even including it in the planning process because hiring police doesn’t make busy work for a bloated planning staff.
One concept being studied is called “Vision Zero” – a philosophical approach to pedestrian/bike/car relationship that aims for “zero” dangerous interactions.
Vision Zero is a pipe dream conjured up by the Unicorn chasers. One its big advocates is planning commissioner and council candidate Richard McKinnon who told our Daily Press reporter, “We need to try to create streets where cars and pedestrian interactions don’t occur.”
Candidate McKinnon is in Fantasyland. There’s no way that a street or intersection will have “zero dangerous interactions” even if configured exclusively for cars, bicycles or for pedestrians.
Union endorsements about wages and benefits
In previous elections, many of us noted the extensive political support and flow of campaign funds from developers and their associates. This cycle, it’s the labor unions that are most active.
While I was in the UK, a couple of council candidates continued to benefit from union endorsements: incumbents Kevin McKeown, Mayor Pam O’Connor and former Lookout columnist and attorney Frank Gruber who has reinvented himself as a labor candidate.
Better than a pro-development candidate, huh, Frank? I’m not impressed.
Labor unions back candidates who support pro-union positions like increased wages and benefits packages. For example, the bargaining units representing the Santa Monica Police Officers’ Association (POA) and Firefighters, Local 1109 endorsed McKeown, O’Connor and Gruber. They claimed their endorsement was due to, “consistent track records of voting for issues that favor community safety and ensure the highest quality of emergency services.”
Is that really true? The POA also endorsed Sheila Kuehl over Bobby Shriver for Los Angeles County Supervisor, 3rd District. Shriver led the move to have police officers pay a small percentage (3%) of their own pension benefits when he was on City Council in 2011. (“Taking on the 800 lb Gorilla,” Editorial, SMDP, Feb 11, 2011, Pg. 4)
Shriver’s position saved Santa Monica taxpayers millions of dollars but the payback for Shriver is and will be harsh. No doubt we’ll soon see mailers saying, “Shriver not good for public safety.”
For me, it’s exactly why I’m supporting Bobby for Supervisor because he does what’s best for the people over voting for himself, politically.
Perhaps for want of sound reasoning, Bill Bauer resorts to the weakest form of argument, actually no argument at all, only an ad hominem attack on my character, which is guided by the principle that we should be kind to animals. While this columnist seemingly does not believe that animals have feelings or suffer, fortunately much of the world, including leading scientists such as Jane Goodall and her colleague, Marc Bekoff, firmly disagree with Bauer. In fact, Beckoff, the author of The Emotional Lives of Animals, calls the tethered pony ride at the Main Street market “thoroughly inhumane.”
While Bauer terms the tethering and trapping of animals “educational” I would point out that tying ponies to a metal bar, forcing them to go round and round for almost four hours, often in the heat, on hard concrete, next to car exhaust and loud music, teaches our children the wrong message, which is not to empathize with animals but to view them as equipment subject to an outdated attitude that disguises animal exploitation as human amusement.
Bauer fails to mention a few salient points: firstly, over 1400 people, many local residents, signed the Move On petition (http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/shut-down-pony-rides) to shut down these exhibits (I urge those reading my comments to read what others have to say about the tethering and trapping of animals); secondly, another 1,000 signed a similar petition during a year-long Main Street market protest in 2005; thirdly, those of us who testified had waited many hours, from 5:30 until midnight, to have a chance to testify on the item and when asked if we wanted the discussion to be held all parties involved, including the animal operators, wanted the discussion to continue into the night and morning.
As for lawsuits, I don’t know why Mr. Bauer, who may fancy himself a journalist, feels compelled to stifle freedom of speech with threats and intimidation, for he knows that criticism of animal exploitation is protected speech, and that any legal challenge would be subject to an anti-SLAPP suit or in lay terms the defense of First Amendment rights. Mr. Bauer also fails to mention that, contrary to what he suggests, I have only told the truth from the beginning, and have used the California Public Records Act to surface issues concerning permits, business licenses, workers compensation, and automatic renewals of leases. To read more, visit http://www.freethepony.org
The campaign to end this exploitation has struck a defensive nerve with Mr. Bauer, who apparently would like nothing better than to continue to restrict the ponies’ freedom to turn around or seek water on their own on a scorching hot day. This is truly a sad commentary, though I am encouraged and inspired by the many others who view animals not as captives but as non-humans who also have rights.
Legally, animals are considered property, and as such, have no rights. But, the tide is turning on this and the movement to accord animals certain rights is building momentum. It is time that this community faced the issue and had the discussion about whether or not we accept the exploitation of animals for the sake of amusement and profit. We as a society have progressed from needing to use animals for transportation, at least here in the U.S., so, really, what are we teaching our children? I think it is a more laudable endeavor to teach children compassion for animals rather than to expect entertainment from them. In Santa Monica we host Cirque du Soleil, not Ringling Bros.; I doubt the community would accept the latter. Why are the ponies different?
As for the alpacas, they are heat sensitive, the high Andes being their original habitat. Anything over 80 degrees can cause them stress. We have some pretty hot days now and without sufficient shade and water they can exhibit stress related behavior.
So, I am glad that Ms. Winograd has brought this matter to our consciousness and I thank the City Council members for voting as they did.
From his opening paragraph, Bill Bauer seems to believe that progress in Santa Monica should come to a grinding halt while he’s vacationing, and his article generally counsels that freedom of speech should be reserved for those whose ideas and opinions he agrees with. The rest of us can expect lawsuits. Sorry, Bill, but those who want to see the humane treatment of animals progress will continue to speak out about it, fully protected by the First Amendment to our constitution.
Bauer ignores the fact that Ms. Marcy Winograd, my spouse, was hardly alone in her view about the abusive character of the pony ride as it has operated on Main Street. She and others gathered over 1400 signatures from Santa Monica residents, business owners and visitors who are disturbed over the spectacle of ponies tied to a pole walking in tight circles on a confined concrete space for hours on a summer Sunday morning and afternoon. About two dozen people spoke passionately at the Council meeting in favor of the resolution that passed unanimously. Some Southern California cities, including Huntington Beach, Pasadena, and Encinitas, and also Hollywood, Florida, have banned such “carousel” rides. As for experts, author and renowned animal expert Professor Marc Bekoff and others have denounced these kinds of rides as inhumane. There are simply better ways to expose children to farm animals than this enervating one. The 18th Century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, ahead of his time on a plethora of issues, had this to say about the mistreatment of animals:
“the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?… The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.”..
Sadly, based on columns like Mr. Bauer’s, and much other evidence, society has a ways to go yet, but we have made some progress since the days of lawful cock-fighting and confining regal animals used to roaming the plains or jungle in tiny cages.
Bauer next offers Ms. Angel specious legal advice, suggesting she sue Marcy, which is a triple whammy. As a non-lawyer, and a pro bono amateur, his advice is worth the paper it’s printed on. Worse, as a journalist — or at least a veteran writer of articles published in a newspaper – one would expect him to have internalized the fundamental precepts that:
● “[S]peech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special constitutional protection.”
● “The freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment exists to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas and to further individual rights of self expression.”
● In this country, we have “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
These quotes come from cases decided in the high courts of this state and nation. Ironically, the last quote comes from a 50-year old case protecting a newspaper from a libel suit on constitutional grounds, one that I suspect Mr. Bauer learned about in school. Yet Bauer, a newspaper columnist, has the temerity to mislabel Marcy’s exercise of her fundamental rights as “bullying”.
The third and least part of Bauer’s whammy is that he takes a swipe at me, worrying for his erstwhile “client”, Ms. Angel, that if she were to sue I would “lawyer” her “ad infinitum”. Fortunately, any such lawsuit attacking Ms. Winograd’s free speech rights – which she (and everyone on both sides of this issue) enjoys on the public street outside the market and in the City Council meeting room – would indeed meet an abrupt end, long before we could reach “infinity”. Indeed, a complaint challenging her protest activities would be destined for prompt ignominious disposal in the dust heap of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss, a procedure which the California legislature enacted to cut short and deter just such litigation. The legislature, aiming to deter litigation designed to quash speech on public issues, declared that:
“The Legislature finds and declares that there has been a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances. The Legislature finds and declares that it is in the public interest to encourage continued participation in matters of public significance, and that this participation should not be chilled through abuse of the judicial process.”
So if Ms. Angel were to heed Mr. Bauer’s cavalier suggestion, chances are her suit would be SLAPPed and dismissed, along with a court order that she pay the attorneys fees of the lawyer(s) who got the case tossed.
Mr. Bauer and I actually agree that pony rides could be a humane and educational experience for children, where the ponies are not tethered to a metal pole to circle ad infinitum, but instead, as he puts it, “carry their young charges on a footpath next to the Brentwood County Club.” If Mr. Bauer had not still been apparently buzzed from his English vacation and fixated on snark, he would have realized that Ms. Winograd and those in agreement with her advocated for the City to seek out just such an untethered alternative, and the Council instructed City staff to do so.
I hope Mr. Bauer will view the tightly encircled pony ride before next spring again for the first time, with renewed vision, reconsider his crabbed view of how animals should be treated by an enlightened society, and recognize the wisdom of the Council’s decision.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal tossed out the lawsuit Bauer recommended Angel file. The law requires Angel to pay Winograd’s attorneys fees. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B261707.PDF
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal tossed out the lawsuit Bauer recommended Angel file. The law requires Angel to pay Winograd’s attorneys fees. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B261707.PDF
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal tossed out the lawsuit Bauer recommended Angel file. The law requires that Angel be ordered to pay Winograd’s attorneys fees. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B261707.PDF