The Santa Monica City Council didn’t attempt to break any laws last Tuesday, which is an improvement over their previous meeting. To their credit, the Councilmembers were civil and coherent while discussing complicated topics. Now comes the hard part. Can they compromise? And can the rest of us?
"We have to do better," said Mayor Phil Brock, referring to the Council, but in truth he could have been referring to all of us — in Santa Monica and across the country — since it was also last Tuesday that Donald Trump warned of hordes of immigrants coming to eat our pets. The problem isn’t that a former President regurgitated xenophobic libel. The problem is how many people are willing to believe odious things about the people they fear.
Donald Trump is far from the first politician to scapegoat foreigners in order to distract citizens. For centuries, European kings led their subjects on crusades to the Middle East by convincing them that their hunger, illness and poverty was caused by people living halfway across the planet. So it’s not surprising that even in a blue city in a blue state, it’s easy to divide into factions and lash out at a generic "they."
They want homeless drug addicts to destroy your property and take over your parks. They want to rip blankets out of the hands of vulnerable unhoused people.
It’s not just about having a difference of opinion when your opponent is a threat to civilized existence. Is this the kind of political quagmire we desire in Santa Monica? Because in an election year, the Councilmembers would never say such things unless they believed that we were eager to hear them.
They may be our elected leaders, but they follow our lead. Do we want them to find solutions or do we prefer for them to voice outrage and provide us with political punching bags? We may want to believe the answer to that is obvious, especially those of us who lament the hyperpartisanship in our nation, but isn’t there sometimes a vicarious thrill when your team knocks the other team down a peg?
We have to resist the dopamine hit from our newsfeeds and the tempting allure of easy answers to complex problems. There aren’t any easy answers, and we won’t all come to the same conclusions. We can try to convince those who disagree with us that they’re wrong, unless there’s too many of them, in which case we reach a stalemate. Right now we’re pretty close to a stalemate. We all get to feel good about the righteousness of our beliefs, while the Promenade is 40% vacant and mentally ill people wander our streets and inhabit our parks.
Exhibit A is the vote last week by four Councilmembers to add those previously referenced blankets to the list of items considered signs of public camping. The other three Councilmembers (Davis, Torosis and Zwick) expressed their moral objections on the basis that this could result in arrests for the non-criminal act of being homeless, and that’s certainly possible. However, it’s worth noting that this proposed "change" is actually a return to the previous wording of the city law as it existed for nearly two decades.
It's possible this measure will merely assuage reactionary voices, but it’s also possible that it will aid an unhoused population with documented reluctance to seeking assistance. The three SMRR Councilmembers are well aware that the STEP Court (Shelter, Treatment and Empowerment Program), which offers drug treatment instead of jail time, has been one of the city’s most successful efforts because it includes both a carrot and a stick. So it would seem that despite their admirable concerns, they missed an opportunity to show a willingness to productively compromise.
Unfortunately, they’re not alone. At the previous Council meeting, it was the Change Slate Councilmembers who preferred moral indignation to negotiation on the topic of affordable housing.
More than two dozen residents showed up to protest plans to convert four properties in Mid-City to permanent housing for currently unhoused people. Councilmembers de la Torre, Parra and Negrete proposed making the properties affordable senior housing instead, and amazingly a compromise was reached to develop only three of the properties for affordable housing, two for seniors and one for families. However, all three Change Slate Councilmembers voted against the agreement, which means two of them voted against what they wanted. Since the item was discussed in closed session, we don’t know exactly what transpired, but it certainly looks like they didn’t want their supporters to believe they would settle for anything less than 100% of their demands.
Instead of leadership we get posturing, and success is defined as complete capitulation by the opposing side. But our officeholders are only reflecting back to us what they believe we want. Is it? If not, the good news for us is that Election Day is a great time to let them know. And the good news for the Councilmembers is that there’s still almost 50 days left for them to take action. They can continue to lock horns and hope their intransigence buys them votes (and campaign contributions) or they can roll up their sleeves and do the hard work. They talk a lot about their compassion and their determination, but talk is cheap. We have to do better.
Devan Sipher
