Downtown Santa Monica Inc. (DTSM) is set to continue overseeing park attendant services in Tongva, Reed and Palisades Park for the seventh year in a row following some debate among DTSM board members as to whether such work is worth the time and effort and fits within the organization’s mission.
DTSM CEO Andrew Thomas said yes.
"These three parks, two of them (Reed and Palisades) are right on our border and Tongva Park is right across from City Hall," he said. "The experiences in these parks affect what happens in our Downtown."
DTSM is a non-profit organization, funded by an assessment paid by Downtown businesses, that works with the City to promote safety, cleanliness and economic vitality on the Promenade and the rest of the Downtown area.
DTSM has been providing park attendant services since 2016 and as the current contract expires this year, the City Council put out a public request for proposals (RFP) for the work. While DTSM expects to retain the contract, the final decision will rest with Council at a future meeting.
Thomas added that DTSM’s contract with the City to provide park attendant services includes a management fee that results in a nearly $200,000 net profit for the organization that he said can be reinvested into the downtown. The City is offering $1.5 million for 600 hours of staffing a week. DTSM plans to continue using their existing service provider, Block by Block (BBB), to carry out the work.
However, DTSM Board member Leo Pustilnikov questioned the implications of DTSM being viewed as responsible for the state of the parks. In recent years, homelessness, drug use and lack of cleanliness have been prevalent issues at each of these sites. He argued that DTSM continuing to take on the staffing and management takes pressure off of the City to address these problems.
"I feel like when it's part of the DTSM, the City could point the finger at us and say, well, it's your thing, it's your problem, you fix it," he said. "Whereas if it’s the City’s problem… the citizens will be upset at the City, the City will have the impetus to fix it and the elected officials will eventually come up with something."
Board member Michelle Aronson argued that it is in fact beneficial to DTSM to have a presence in the parks and emphasized that the City is still footing the bill.
"It keeps us in the know about what’s happening at the border, so we have direct knowledge of what's happening and we are not paying for it," she said. "It's been this way for several years now. It's not taking away from our focus and objectives and they just I don't see any reason why we wouldn't want to continue this."
Board member Peter Trinh said that ideally DTSM would not have to undertake this kind of work, but he said it is necessary for the organization to embrace reality and recognize the ways in which larger issues in the city affect downtown businesses.
"In a perfect world, we shouldn't have to worry about this and we should be worrying about the core thing: economic and local stability for businesses and the local community," he said. "We're becoming homeless experts because it's affecting business, we’re becoming like policy experts, because how do we push things through?"
The board voted six to three to approve entering into another contract with the city to continue providing park attendant services at their April 11 meeting.
