We in Santa Monica, have been governing by ideology for many years. We measure our policies and their effects by vague standards of moral righteousness, not by quantitative results—not by the numbers—and it’s not working!
We see this all over the West Coast, as liberally minded folks want to achieve a just and fair society, and so policy is enacted to achieve that end — but without quantitative results, what that end looks like can be vague and leave both sides of any issue claiming victory.
We see this in the homelessness emergency in Santa Monica, where this newspaper had to file freedom of information requests to get basic information on the number of homeless in our city, because the city implemented several measures to combat homelessness, without implementing a system to measure those policies and was not making public the information it did have, as our partner agencies had stopped collecting or sharing their data.
In a meeting the city manager told us that measuring the success was less urgent than getting aid to those in need. While I understand his point, it clearly illuminates that we are operating under a mandate to achieve an ideology before specific results, since the means to quantitively measure success are not incorporated into the policies themselves.
When you work to achieve an ideology, you succeed just by doing it.
We are the home of the homeless. We are a humanitarian bastion. We have achieved our ideological goal. AND we are in a homelessness emergency with no clear measure affirmed plans to move us beyond, because that would require goals that are about achieving specific quantifiable results.
Look at our school system where we hired a consultant team in 2015 to help us improve test scores (measures) for our students of color.
In many ways SMMUSD did not enact the cultural changes the lead author, Dr. Noguera suggested. Instead, the school board continued to operate as it had, with all kinds of ideological fanfare. Every student now must take Ballet Folklorico and 9th grade honors English has been abolished. Problem solved!
They sent out a DEI plan with lots of fancy programs, but the actual issues Dr Noguera highlighted in his report; connecting teaching staff, principals and district administrators, are still not being properly addressed:
"Williamson noted that one of the biggest challenges lies in the area of improving instructional outcomes through professional learning and collaboration, as the work on integrating English Language Development standards and culturally and linguistically responsive practices has not allowed for any spending on the priority."
So ideologically we are doing all sorts of fancy things but the numbers are not significantly changing for our students of color.
There are so many examples of this… Take ‘no cash bail’. What a great idea, right? People of color and low means are regressively affected by bail, so let’s get rid of it to make our society a more just place.
Well, I agree ideologically… except what’s happening if you speak with local police officers, is that people are committing minor crimes, being let out "the back door" and then committing more minor crimes. They don’t have the 12-to-24-hour period to think about what they’ve done. To feel the burn of having to call their family to bail them out. There is no period of consideration and the behavior essentially goes unabated.
Or how we capped rent hikes in Santa Monica at $76, which means that the wealthiest renters benefit the most. Ideologically we are capping rent hikes to make rent more affordable, but actually, we’re regressively benefiting mostly those who have higher end apartments. The intended result is unclear, but the ideology is crystal.
How did we get here?
Imagine if you will, a time when Santa Monica was a sleepy little beach side town. It’s city hall run mostly by members of the chamber of commerce, its shopping districts, including the promenade, somewhat small and quant. There were jobs at Douglas airlines and beautiful beaches.
Everything was just fine and dandy — as long as you were a male, middle class+, white, homeowner.
Then came the 60’s cultural revolution, as well as the interstate 10 freeway, a federal behemoth that carved the city in half, plowing through the Pico neighborhood that had been mostly residents of color (ironically later named ‘the Rosa Parks Freeway’.)
In January of 1965, the final segment of the 10-freeway opened for business and modern Santa Monica was born.
It was the 60’s, man. Things were afoot. The stodgy square ways of doing things were on the out and the hippies were here to challenge the status quo. It would take a new ideology to change the way of operating, and folks like Tom Hayden changed the way our society and our city engaged with policy.
We needed something far reaching to change the way people saw their world, and the hippies brought it. Following the 10-freeway connecting our once sleepy town to center of Los Angeles, our local folks saw that renters were at risk of getting priced out of their homes and Santa Monicans for Renters Rights was born.
It took a vision, and a strong ideology to break the cultural norms and to make our city one that took care of its least privileged citizens. It took doing "the right thing" to enact rent control and put our schools and public works first — to build out the promenade etc. It took careful zoning and a belief that we should lead the way, with far reaching building regulation to create a more functional and just society.
But ideology may help you break the barriers that seem unbreakable, but it will only get you so far. You need to have specific achievable and quantifiable results in mind if you want to actually succeed. You need to use the data to retool programs, cutting those that don’t work and adjusting those that the data suggests need editing.
Because any vision can be a success — if success is measured solely by how things feel and sound.
So, Santa Monica, are you ready to grow up? To move beyond the cultural revolution and actually govern — actually put achieving results ahead of the ideological success? To start with a clear result, and work towards specifically achieving that?
Exploring the emerging and changing identity of our city. And stirring the pot … a bit. Send comments to editor@smdp.com or reach Miles Warner directly at @mileswarnerSM
