Congratulations to Jesse Zwick. He is becoming a better fiction writer every day. However, I wish he had found better material. He seems to be drawing from SMRR’s tired old bag of tricks and cliches. As his fellow establishment council members and their sycophants know, candidates have no legal method to influence donations to an IE or PAC. City Council candidates have NO prior knowledge of the donation that might arrive or why the donation was made, and not one cent of the donation goes to candidates. Let me quickly refute some of the blatant lies that the SMRR/SM Democratic Club made.
1. As a lifelong Democrat, I am proud to be endorsed by two Democratic organizations and to have served as a surrogate for Kamala Harris in Nevada. My values align perfectly with the Democratic Party's commitment to equality, justice and progress. I am dedicated to continuing these values on the Santa Monica City Council and it is disappointing to see these candidates raising false flags about their democratic values being superior to ours. It's a stark contrast to the unity and shared purpose that the Democratic Party stands for. How undemocratic of them.
2. I met Jordan (the CEO of Douglas Emmett) in 2022 and have not communicated with him since then. My educated guess is that his company’s properties are suffering from the same crime and homelessness invasions the rest of Santa Monica’s residents and businesses are being afflicted with. I represent the best chance, along with Delatorre, Rokian, and Putnam, for a safer city, a responsive, fully staffed police department, and real solutions for homelessness. Instead of the statements from the three SMRR incumbents who continuously ignore the situation on our streets, I have continually attempted to act while being blocked by these three crime deniers at every turn.
3. As a lifelong resident of Santa Monica, I understand the importance of affordable housing. I own NO rental property in Santa Monica, have voted FOR every rent control adjustment under the City Council’s purview and firmly support rent control. I am committed to ensuring that all residents have access to affordable housing in their existing neighborhoods.
4. Several of Council Member Torosis's statements about gutting rent control in 2022 and having it on our local ballot this year are especially misleading. Rent Control is embedded in the city’s charter and cannot be changed by any city council, only by the voters of our city.
5. I have consistently voted to build more affordable housing within our city and to prioritize our programs to support affordable senior and family housing. These efforts are a testament to my dedication to improving the housing situation in Santa Monica and providing hope for a better future for all residents.
6. The real “sellout slate” is the SMRR members who have controlled the city council since 1979 and stopped thinking about the needs of our community, both business and residential, to focus on their need to stay in power rather than lead with common sense. SMRR stopped caring about all residents (owners and renters) safety and well-being.
7. SMRR’s record on wasting taxpayer dollars is clear. Their ideology led to the tremendously wasteful and expensive boondoggle of City Hall East, a $75 million disaster, for example.
It is clear who the sellouts are. The SMRR and pseudo-democratic ticket have sold out our safety and security and allowed the Promenade to deteriorate for almost a decade by being unwilling to own up to the economic disaster that was brewing in our city and reigning in homelessness. It’s no longer “WOKE” time in the city we love. It is time to have compassionate accountability toward the homeless who inhabit our streets, parks, and alleys. There is no longer time to ignore the needs of our residents and businesses to have a safe environment. Ask yourself if SMRR’s policies have made you safer, as demonstrated by the three incumbents listed above.
Have Davis’ statements that the “homeless are our unhoused residents” and “I don’t trust the SMPD” helped to make you feel safer? Torosis and Zwick oppose the amount of police we need in Santa Monica to prevent crime. Do the four SMRR candidates' statements about reelecting DA Gascon and continuing his acquiescence to continued unchecked crime in our community and applauding the county’s distribution of Syringes and Glass Pipes in Reed and Tongva Park make you, renters and owners, feel safer in our parks? There is only one choice in this election, and it is not the fiction that SMMR and their Dem Club cronies are trying to sell you. It’s like they are trying to sell you their utopian ideology rather than dealing with the reality of 2024 Santa Monica, a city dealing with daily public safety crises.
Fiction writer Zwick has only one correct statement in this SMRR/Dem Club propaganda piece: “Voters Will Not Be Fooled.” Yes, they will not be fooled by the misdirection, lies and fearmongering manure that they and their candidates hope you’ll buy into to.
Phil Brock, Mayor of Santa Monica
Written in response to a press release about the local election. See coverage here.
