Spending in support of ballot measures last year more than doubled the combined ballot measure spending in the previous two elections.
Of the more than $1,315,000 that was spent on initiatives, most came from one pro-Santa Monica Airport group.
Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions spent $872,593 to get Measure D on the ballot and then in support of the measure, which ultimately failed in a landslide at the polls.
Measure D would have required a public vote on significant changes to the controversial airport and the political action committee, backed largely by out-of-state aviation groups, spent more to support the doomed measure than any group in recent Santa Monica history.
Harrison Ford, who crashed his plane at the golf course just outside of the airport last week, contributed $25,000 to that campaign.
Opponents of the measure and supporters of its counterpoint, Measure LC, spent $157,711. Measure LC passed.
Almost all of the remaining money spent by measure-boosters was on Measure H, which would have raised the tax on the sale of million dollar homes, and HH, which would have set that cash aside for affordable housing production. Voters downed Measure H but narrowly passed Measure HH, which was merely a symbolic victory for its advocates thanks to the failure of H.
A committee, backed almost entirely by the California Association of Realtors, spent $167,932 against the measure while another committee, backed largely by individuals or groups associated with development or real estate, spent $110,304 in support of it. Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights, the city's largest political party, put another $5,000 behind the measure.
Less than $600,000 was spent in support of or opposed to measures in the 2010 and 2012 elections combined.
Spending on pro-school measures dominated those elections.
Measure ES, which will fund facility and technology upgrades in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District through a bond, got more than a quarter million dollars worth of support in 2012. Hundreds of million in funding from that successful measure is just beginning to be allocated by the Ed Board.
In 2010, Measures Y and YY passed with nearly $290,000 in campaign support. The measures raised the sales tax and set some of that money aside for schools.
Last year's ballot measure spending was less than in 2008 when nearly $1.4 million was spent in support of or opposition to four propositions.
Spending by advocates and proponents of Measure T, which would have placed an annual 75,000-square-foot cap on commercial growth, generated almost as much wallet-opening as last year's Measure D.
Measure T failed after more than $770,000 was spent in opposition to it and $140,000 pledged in support.
Another $467,000 was spent that year in support of Measure AA, which passed, authorizing a bond to fund hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction projects at Santa Monica College.
More than a million was spent on the City Council race last year and $295,000 was spent on Ed Board campaigns.
All told, more than $3.3 million has been spent on measures in the past four elections. Council elections resulted in $2.3 million over that same time frame while Ed Board races topped half a million. That's more than $6 million spent on political campaigns over six years.
dave@www.smdp.com
