Editor:
We have long awaited the golden opportunity to grab back control of the City Council from Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights. They should be forced to change their name to Santa Monicans for Big Developers' Rights, because they actually have been about pushing big development and nothing about renters' rights for decades.
To ensure the best chance of success it is absolutely critical that we all vote for the same four anti-development candidates and not scatter our votes everywhere. If we are truly serious about stopping never-ending large development and all its quality of life diminishing collateral damage — such as gridlock, traffic cutting through residential neighborhoods, air pollution, wasted fuel, road rage, and danger to bicyclists and pedestrians — the four candidates that will help accomplish this are John C. Smith, Bob Seldon, Steve Duron and Jonathan Mann.
Do not vote for Ted Winterer, who had my vote and narrowly lost to a SMRR opponent in the last election, because he has gone over to the dark side and is now a SMRR-endorsed candidate. He has made no attempt to reject the endorsement of SMRR, a group he was supposedly against.
Do not vote for any SMRR-endorsed candidate, namely Terry O'Day, Gleam Davis, Shari Davis and Winterer.
Do not vote for Frank Gruber, who has a very long, documented record of supporting big development.
For school board, Ben Allen, perhaps, deserves another chance to keep some of the promises he made when he ran last time. A complete different story is that of SMRR's Maria Leon-Vazquez and Jose Escarce. They are responsible for tens of millions of wasted taxpayer dollars and refuse to take an ounce of blame. If they mismanage or foolishly spend, they don't care. Like the 3,500 permit students that lose taxpayers $10.5 million a year, so a few teachers have someone to teach. It's not their money and they can always just stick their hand out for more, whether they have finished spending what they already have or not. Measure ES is a prime example. Kick these two to the curb and vote for anyone else and vote no on Measure ES.
It's house cleaning time. For God's sake, vote to save what little of Santa Monica we have left.
W. Norse
Santa Monica
