Meet Jon Mann

Name: Jon Mann

Age: 71

Occupation: Retired Flight Attendant, Teacher, Parole Agent

Neighborhood of residence: OP

Own or rent: Both

Marital status/kids: Single/Divorced/ Widowed 13yo and 43yo sons

Party affiliation: GREEN!

SURVEY

1. Should Santa Monica provide more city sponsored services to homeless individuals including establishing a sober living facility in city limits?

Absolutely!  The Santa Monica  city council should also  be providing services to veterans and mentally ill homeless who have a substance abuse problem, rather than excluding them from housing.

2. Does the solution to traffic require life be made easier or more difficult for drivers?

There is no solution to traffic in Santa monica; the city ouncil caused the problem and is agressively making it worse with their continuing support of over development.

3. Does the city have too many alcohol outlets and should there be stronger limits on acquiring alcohol licenses?

The availability of alcohol in Santa Monica is another source of revenue that the city council arrgressively approves.

4. What percentage of your daily travel needs are met using something other than a private car?

90%

5. What, if any, apps are on your phone/computer/tablet right now were developed by a Santa Monica company?

I'm not a techie and have no idea!~)

6. The city’s zoning rules now allow for marijuana dispensaries but the city has delayed implementing the clause. Has the city been too cautious, too reckless or just right in its approach to marijuana?

I am on record proposing lelalized marijuana be regulated, industrially grown, sold and TAXED by the CITY, to prevent abuse, restrict access and raise revenue for treatment of chronically homeless veterans with a dual diagnosis for drugs and conditions like PTSD.

7. What is your definition of overdevelopment and what is your plan to prevent it?

For years Santa Monica's city council has deliberately engaged in a policy of over development despite the chaos that results, in order to create massive revenues to reward the city employees and SMRR cronys, and to receive campaign contributions from developers...

8. Hobbies?

Science fiction conventions, body surfing, skiing, scrabble, baseball and running for city council.

9. Do you spend more time streaming video or watching cable TV?

NO, it cuts into my reading time.

10. All cities have struggled to find money for affordable housing in the past few years. Is the current ballot measure raising the local sales tax the appropriate way to fund affordable housing?

This city has more than enough revenue to build REAL affordable housing to replace and increase the amount  rapidly being lost due to condo conversions, etc.  The new housing popping up all over the city is NOT affordable, especially for people who work here and earn low income. Only the city can afford to invest in the kind of housing fthat is needed.

11. How have you been involved in the Santa Monica Community in non-election years?

I have applied to be on City commissions, but due to my reputation as a critic of the city council, I will never be even considered.  I protest inequalities and discrimination, only to be ignored by the powers that be in Santa Monica.

12. Have you ridden any of the attractions at Pacific Park? If so which ones and how often?

Never

13. How aggressive should the city be in its pursuit of closing the airport?

I was the first city council candidate to advocate closing SMO and expanding Clover Park as voted in the 1926 bond issue.

14. To what degree should Santa Monica integrate with the surrounding municipalities?

We should work together and do our share based on resources, but we should also accept our larger responsibility to provide services to our own residents and homeless drawn to Santa Monica.

15. Businesses often talk about the difficulty of working in Santa Monica. Why is the current level of regulation appropriate and should the city do more to encourage and support the business community?

The city council should do MUCH more to support SMALL microentrepreneur type business and other lower cost commerical and food industry providers. The community has long wanted a Target store but the city council preferss high end businesses to reap more tax revenues.

16. What is the correct approach to operating the Santa Monica Airport?

SHUT IT DOWN! Airport to Park!

17. Where do you stand on the local ballot measures (GS, GSH, LV, SM and V)?

QUESTIONS

Please provide at least 100 words on each of the three questions. Candidates have a maximum of 600 words for the combined answers in this section.

1. Why are you running for council, what makes you qualified to lead, and what role do you see yourself playing on the dais if elected?

I am running for Santa Monica City Council to take our city back from developers and other special interests,and to take money out of local politics! It's not democratic for a coalition of developers, city employee associations and Santa Monica Renters Rights to control who gets elected.

I am beholden to NO special interests, which allows me to ONLY serve the interests of the residents and put to a stop to the rapid deterioration of our quality of life.

Bear in mind that many candidates for public office are either running for vanity, or angling to become insiders, so they can join the feeders at the public trough of close to two thirds of a BILLION dollars!

I am running to represent the disenfranchised residents of Santa Monica and I urge all residents to only vote for candidates firmly against over development, and to not vote for any of the incumbents. We need to replace all four incumbents to achieve a majority on the council.

Santa Monica residents are fed up with how this city has been run, but feel powerless to change the status quo. I feel the same powerlessness living in a city run by an incredibly greedy and counterproductive city council that has pledged their loyalty to the Santa Monica Renters Rights steering committee, the city employee associations, and accepts campaign contributions from developers.

I support the Oaks Initiative, but it doesn't go far enough. I am the only candidate who has consistently called for an investigation of cronyism, revolving door politics, conflict of interest among city council, staff and city contractors, present and past city council members and members of the SMRR Steering committee.

I have demanded an investigation into Kevin McKeown's relationship with the Santa Monica School District which created a job for him that pays 5 to 10 times what he was earning with the district before he was on the council.

I'm also proposing recreational marijuana be regulated, industrially grown, sold and taxed by the CITY, to prevent abuse, restrict access and raise revenue for treatment, especially that of chronically homeless veterans with a dual diagnosis for drugs and psychological conditions like PTSD.

If elected to the council, I pledge to do everything in my power to overcome the strangle hold special interests have on this city, to cut the waste and misappropriation of this wealthy city's budget, and redirect those revenues to serve the residents.

Public policy in this city is a joke; city staff and council are motivated by a policy of self interest and their public relations approach is designed to make it look like their policies are sustainable and well managed; nothing can be further from the truth.

The best way to deal with incompetence at the municipal government level is to recall the entire SMRR city council. I would then create citizen review boards to oversee how the city's revenues are disbursed so that measures to make the city more effective and cost efficient are being implemented responsibly, rather than using the city budget to enrich special interests, SMRR cronies and their fellow feeders at the public trough…

2. ~ What were the council’s best decisions in the past two years? What were the worst?

I cannot think of any good decisions the council has made recently, but it has made plenty of bad decisions, such as hiring the current city manager who is a proponent of gentrification.

The city council continues to implement failed approaches to the crises facing this city, many of which were exacerbated by the council's  counterproductive policy decisions, This council is diverting city revenue and wasting the city's immense coffers creating jobs for cronies. Jobs that fail to address the real problems in this city which should be building low income housing, dealing realistically with the homeless, repairing infrastructure and other desperately needed measures. Instead the city council spend hundreds of millions on excessive administrative salaries and pensions.

Among the council's many failed attempts to alleviate traffic gridlock, are its ludicrous efforts to develop alternate forms of transportation, like providing bicycles for tourists. Many of the traffic calming 'solutions' the council has implemented, like planter medians that narrow streets, actually have the opposite effect and create MORE traffic gridlock. Not building an elevated Expo has resulted in backed up traffic and increased danger at train crossings.

The BBB has made riding the bus not only more expensive, but extremely slow and inconvenient. This city is more than rich enough to provide FREE and rapid mass transportation with quicker, easier and free transportation choices for everyone, especially our senior and handicapped residents whose transportation options are managed in a way that discourages access. The new bus stops in this city are a joke, bus, service is inefficient, and perfectly usable $1200 bus benches removed, AND SOLD AS SCRAP!

Land use and zoning regulations, parking restrictions, and a ridiculous permit process that favors big developers, all contribute to more chaos in our city. These kind of policies, that act as an incentive for over development, have actually created a high rent housing market that has taken over our city and is pushing the cost of home ownership out of reach.

I have opposed some tax measures the city has put on the ballot to create public funding for housing, including GS and GSH, because we don't need "no more stinkin taxes"! What we need is efficient cost management from our city manager to hire people who produce constructive work and earn a living wage.

There are no longer factions of our city council; every sitting council member is advocating raising building heights in downtown Santa Monica ABOVE the Land Use Circulation Element (LUCE).

The Land Use Voter Empowerment Initiative (LUVE) doesn't go far enough; it keeps the height limits where they are throughout the city. I am the only candidate who has consistently called for a moratorium on ALL development, except development approved by residents, and for real low income housing for workers who can't afford to live here and are being exploited for their labor.

How much longer can the residents of Santa Monica put up with a city government that caters to special interests over residents? Residents are fed up with how this city is being run, which is why over 10,000 residents put measure LV on the ballot

3. ~ How has the city’s pursuit of sustainability been appropriately balanced with economic, development and financial concerns?

The present City Council is NOT balanced, it is all about the wrong kind of economic development designed to increase city revenues, rather than to return Santa Monica to its former glory as a peaceful and quiet seaside community.

The city is wasting revenues on studies and public relations campaigns designed to impress the public, instead of  allocating those revenues for projects that actually develop renewable sources of energy,  like our neighboring coastal city, Torrance, is doing with it's desalination project. That is the kind of solution that will actually make a difference in the drought. The city should also enforce more stringent regulations on excessive water usage.

Urban development in Santa Monica has gone out of control, especially when the poor are largely excluded. That is one of the many reasons I support Measure LV.  Over development in Santa Monica seriously reduces the quality of life for those of us who live here. I liked Santa Monica much more when we had less than a third of our present budget.

The city needs to invest a significant portion of its financial resources to build low income housing, for people who work here at low income jobs. Too many people who work here can not afford to live here, and too many people who live here, don't work here. We need to return to having a balanced and diverse population, again.

Measure LV, like rent control in the 70s would give residents a voice in stopping the building of so called market rate apartments. With over development zoned into Santa Monica, former rent control buildings are rapidly being converted into condos and "market rate" housing is only affordable to affluent residents. The poor have been zoned out of Santa Monica and we are rapidly losing diversity. Soon much of our demographic will be primarily affluent whites.

To achieve economic balance among our city employees our city council needs to reduce this city's top heavy bureaucracy with its excessive salaries and pension plans, beginning with asking for the resignation of our top officials and then hiring people who actually work and are productive employees

For decades I have been calling for a Virtual Town Hall on the city website to empower city residents to implement genuine transparency and accountability of our public servants. I am talking about a BALANCE of power between council and residents…

The city council steadfastly refuses to consider implementing an interactive interface because it would usurp their authority to disperse the budget as they see fit. It would generate civilized discourse on moderated forums to achieve consensus on issues such as homelessness, and help determine how to restore lost equilibrium destroyed by the council's excessive misdirected policy of urban gentrification.

Public input could be a powerful resource, but is rejected by city officials who are threatened by the disclosure of their excessive waste and misappropriation of city revenues. Politicians by their very nature protect their turf, and look out for their own self interest. The last thing this SMRR council would EVER implement would be an interactive interface that would empower the residents to have a voice in their municipal government, to demand transparency and to hold their public officials accountable!

In our increasingly transparent society, information is power. The Internet is a powerful tool to level the playing field so anyone can run for office, WITHOUT endorsements and contributions from special interests. I can not cite a single occasion when a grass roots activist for residents, like myself, has ever been elected and stayed committed to the people.

I'M JON MANN, A MANN FOR THE PEOPLE AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE!