Thursday’s meeting of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. (DTSM) was all about new people in new positions as the board of directors welcomed the four new appointees and Michele Aronson was voted in as the new chair, replacing Eric Sedman.
You may recall that during the July 9 meeting, members of City councilmembers wrestled over the nomination and voting process for the three key council-appointed positions on the DTSM board of directors during the annual appointment voting to the boards and commissions within the City of Santa Monica.
The nominees were Peter Trinh, Ericka Lesley (both incumbents) plus Kurt Isensee, Natasha Rusler, Jon Farzam, Berta Negari, Hudson Maudlin, Michelle Cardiel, Hodge Patterson, Andrea Salerno and Albin Gielicz. Barry Snell finished his last term and so could not reapply. He is instead running for a seat on Council.
Following three somewhat muddled rounds of voting the three new, council-appointed seats on the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. board went to Jon Farzam, Berta Negari and Michelle Cardiel, by votes of 4-3, 5-2 and 4-3 respectively. And in a turn of events not seen too often, both incumbents were not reappointed.
"I’m excited and very happy to be part of this group. I can see … [that] everybody is eager and excited to make good changes and positive changes into downtown Santa Monica and I look forward to it," said Negari, introducing herself to the DTSM board. "My background is in real estate. I'm a real estate broker and I do property management … I have a very bird's eye view [sic] of a lot of businesses in my background to be able to identify what's what makes a business or … vision [a] success."
"I'm very excited to be here. I'm a lifelong resident of Santa Monica. I'm a building permit expediter, formerly a city employee. I'm also in construction and just excited to see what the future is going to be for downtown [and the] Promenade. I have children, we're here all the time. So I'm excited to see what it holds," Cardiel said when it was her turn to introduce herself.
Next it was Farzam's turn. "I own and operate the Ocean View and Shore hotels in Santa Monica. Born and raised in Santa Monica, I look forward to working with all of you and being a part of the amazing things that we’re going to do in the city."
(Incidentally, the Shore Hotel was named the number one Hotel in the US by TripAdvisor in the 2024 Best of the Best Traveler’s Choice Awards.)
The three new Council-appointed members were joined by the board-reelected Joshua Gilman from Walter N Marks, Inc, who will serve his third and final term representing Zone 1, and a reelected Bruce Fairity from Cypress Equity Investments serving the Lincoln Zone. Finally, the fourth new face is Zone 2 elected candidate Edna Galindo, from United El Segundo, inc.
"I work for Jeffrey Appel [United El Segundo, inc.] and we have some residential properties in Santa Monica. And then he purchased some in downtown Santa Monica here, so we're excited," said Galindo, adding, "This is the first time in our company [sic] that we've been involved this much, we just buy buildings and rent them out and do a lot of things. So this is the first time that Jeff has wanted to have a lot of involvement. We're just hoping to do our best."
The next order of business in a jam-packed agenda and an almost full house of public attendees was to vote for the new chair of the board since Sedman’s term was completed. He nominated Aronson and by accepting the nomination, that acted as a second and the board voted unanimously 12-0 as Leo Pustilnikov was absent.
Julia Ladd nominated Sedman to take Snell’s former position as Treasurer and that too passed unanimously. The Treasurer position is a fully functioning board position, plus it’s an automatic appointment to the finance committee. That committee is also referred to as the executive committee.
After that, things got a little more complicated as the nominations for the four Vice Chair positions came up. Negari nominated herself, Bruce Fairty nominated Ladd, Luke Cain nominated himself, Lucian Tudor nominated himself, Ladd nominated Fairty, Sedman nominated Joshua Gilman and Galindo nominated herself.
In an effort to keep things as straightforward as possible, CEO Andrew Thomas suggested that each board member vote for four nominees. Ladd, Fairty and Cain each secured a majority number of votes with Ladd retaining her Vice Chair position.
However, because of Pustilnikov’s absence, there was an even numbered quorum, which resulted in several more rounds of voting for the last position between Gilman and Negari. Thomas suggested a cage match, but tragically no one pursued that idea. Finally, in a curious move, Fairty changed his vote from Gilman to Negari, giving the newcomer an unprecedented Vice Chair position in her debut DTSM appearance.
There will now be a summer break through August and the next DTSM board meeting won’t be until Thursday, September 26.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
