Voters returned two incumbents to the Santa Monica City Council Tuesday, but it was a Planning Commissioner, who after suffering a narrow defeat in 2010, returned to topple both as the top vote-getter.
The commissioner, Ted Winterer, glided to victory with 15.1 percent of the votes. He won the most votes, but the incumbents, Terry O'Day and Gleam Davis, did not fall in their fight to retain two of four open seats. They garnered 14.5 and 12.9 percent of the votes, respectively, according to results from all 54 precincts posted at 4:48 a.m. Wednesday.
Clinching the fourth and final open seat on the seven-member dais was former councilman Tony Vazquez. He squeezed in with 10.2 percent of the votes.
The winners comprise the slate endorsed by the community's most influential political group, Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights. Independently, the candidates financed their campaigns with personal loans and political contributions ranging between $13,466 and $49,919. SMRR spent $98,722 advocating for the four candidates' elections.
See also: Exit Polls Show Locals Uninterested in Local Races
An Ocean Park resident, Winterer was favored by many community leaders. In an election year focused heavily on development, many Winterer supporters touted him a a slow-growth candidate. They feared a roadblock to victory when a new Political Action Committee funded by a prominent housing developer began supporting him along with three other candidates they considered to be "pro-development."
Vazquez previously served on the council from 1990 to 1994. He currently runs an independent advocacy and consulting firm, according to his website.
In their first shots at a City Council race, Shari Davis, Richard McKinnon, John C. Smith and Frank Gruber burst onto the scene with decent showings:
CANDIDATE VOTES % TED WINTERER 13,586 15.12 TERRY ODAY 13,057 14.53 GLEAM OLIVIA DAVIS 11,605 12.91 TONY VAZQUEZ 9,129 10.16 SHARI DAVIS 8,091 9 RICHARD MCKINNON 5,984 6.66 JOHN CYRUS SMITH 4,818 5.36 FRANK GRUBER 4,619 5.14 JONATHAN MANN 3,783 4.21 BOB SELDON 3,184 3.54 ARMEN MELKONIANS 2,886 3.21 TERENCE LATER 2,829 3.15 JERRY P RUBIN 2,313 2.57 ROBERTO GOMEZ 2,147 2.39 STEVE DURON 1,829 2.04On Tuesday night, dense fog delayed vote counts in Santa Monica, leaving residents without any new results for most of the night. The weather grounded helicopters carrying ballots to county election headquarters in Norwalk, forcing officials to use slower-moving ground vehicles instead.
Some 19,000 absentee ballots were counted and reported shortly after the polls closed at 8 p.m., but the Santa Monica precincts didn't start reporting until after 2 a.m.
"Appreciate the patience & recognition of fog impacts, geographic distance and volume in L.A. County as we ensure secure ballot processing," Tweeted the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
Spokeswoman Elizabeth Kanox said results from Santa Monica and Torrance were particularly slow.
By midnight, only a couple handfuls of people people remained at an election night party hosted by Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights. Close to 200 had gathered earlier in the evening to watch President Barack Obama's reelection speech, organizers said.
"We've waited this long before," Nancy Greenstein, co-chair emeritus of SMRR, said of election results. "They start coming in around 11ish. By 1 a.m. you'll start getting a substantial amount of results."
Her prediction was off by about an hour.
Each of the winning candidates were endorsed by SMRR.
"So far, with the numbers we have, it looks like a tremendous win," said current City Councilman Kevin McKeown about 11:45 p.m. (McKeown was not up for reelection).
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Since we also had far worse candidates to oppose, though--the two Davises and O'Day--with such a large field it was impossible to get behind four who could win. As soon as we rest a few days, we need to regroup on what to do next to stop the developers' onslaught. There are 23 development agreements now proposed. Many more will come now that the developers won their typical 5-2 majority, at least, even if Winterer does vote with McKeouwn. This is a sad game they play, taking turns being the third no vote so each of them can claim as they did in this election to have voted against some terrible projects. The truth is, though, that all the projects are approved. That is the game, and we residents are the losers. At least everyone opposed to the development tsunami should come on Nov 13 to oppose the Village Trailer Park development agreement, twice the 91 who spoke against it last time. We are homeowners who are also protected from eviction by special state laws and by rent control. If we can be evicted for developer profit, any homeowner is far more likely to be. They got all the rental housing through Ellis. Now they are coming for owned homes.
The important thing is we found out how many people are opposed to overdevelopment. The winners had to lie about what they stand for in order to get any votes. Even SMRR, which supported all the developers' lapdogs, does not really stand for overdevelopment. Apparently it has lost its way in the thicket of favors done and promised by developers. The old "end justifies the means" strategy, which always results in at least chaos if not disaster. We need to find our way out of that thicket with a winning coalition for residents. The Winterer-McKinnon-O'Day problem is people who have some environmentalist credentials but vote for (or play the game of being the 4-3 losing no vote, which ends up the same as voting yes) on every development proposed. Worse, no one attacked Gleam Davis and O'Day for being on a Council that approved millions of square feet of development, when every EIR says the environmental impacts are significant and unavoidable. We have to find a straight message and a winning ticket.
We must start the drive now so we can get the nessary signatures to have a recall election as soon as January. This would be an opportunity to draw from the Candidates that did not make it this time. And after January when the "little piggy wiggies" get sworn we can start a recall drive on Gleam Davis and Terry O'Day 90 days after they take office. Then at this point we can again draw from the pool of Candidates that did not make it the first and second time. I will need help but if I have to do it myself I will try. Really hope to get help. What do you all say that feel dejected and pissed. Are you with me? Don't take too long. We need to act fast. The picture would be getting rid of 2 by January, or soon after. And by law 90 days after Davis and O'Day are sworn in. Does this sound like a plan? Email me and at least give me your thoughts on this. Let's get together and play a course of action as far as getting the Recall signatures, which after the initial 100 signatures, we will need 15 percent of the registered voters which would be roughly 7,500. I know it sounds like a lot but we can do it by being organized. Roberto Gomez
Therefore, the only hope I have is that people with a plan to run the City on something other than developers' fees and increased property taxes will get in in 2014. That is why I supported Merkelians so much. He has a real plan, to develop and sell renewable energy to make the City self-sufficient. We have to have an alternative to more and more and bigger and bigger developments. The City is too dense and crowded and noisy now, as this Newcomer discovered.
That is why my husband and I have spent almost fulltime for three years to save the home we own here. That and the fact that the Council has violated 57 separate laws--and counting--in its totally determined approval to give another developer millions and take a cut for the City. That is so they can continue their profligate spending like $55 million on two parks in front of City Hall. Exit polls by the Patch showed people didn't care about local issues this time. That is why they followed their SMRR cherat sheets and elected the four they did. SMRR is too involved in incestuous favor-giving and -getting with the Council developer lapdogs and its developer friends. We have lost control of the City. It will never stop--23 development agreements in the pipeline and now a giant one started by the Holiday Inn downtown, and more and more gleams in developers' eyes. As long as they have their lapdogs on the Council, we have to fight each development legally, which is a lot of work.
So if a few injunctions get entered, there will be a seachange. After that, if they keep doing the same thing, damages will be awarded in so many millions that it will bankrupt the City. It isn't so daunting as I think when I am tired. we can regroup and do this. Don't give up.
I think our picketing in front of Village Trailer Park and the impact anti-development candidates with no developer money behind them had, both show when people do focus on SM, they want the overdevelopment to stop. A real campaign starting now will get rid of these developer lapdogs for another 20 years until people forget how bad it got and someone else will have to do the job again.
When they focus on it things happen like 91 people came to Council last time to speak against destruction of Village Trailer Park. It's back up again this Tuesday, so if twice as many people came to speak against it again, people would know anti-development is here to stay, no matter how much developers buy SMRR. What they are doing is illegal. It can be fought legally. If we have to, we should organize to do that, too. What has happened already is far too much.
SMRR put these developer lapdogs ("DLs") onto the Council. People were focused on federal and state issues and followed their SMRR cheat sheets, the Patch's exit polls showed. SMRR is responsible for that. The reason they did it is they all get favors like consulting jobs and appointments to high-paying Board jobs from their DL friends on the Council. We can stop this. We have to organize and fund educational campaigns. I disagree that neighborhood councils can do it, as someone said in one of these comments. Neighborhood councils have been opposed to all the developments that keep getting approved. We have to get a Council with a different plan for funding the City.
The one thing I think all of us who are really analytical about this need to keep saying--as opposed to developers' lapdogs and SMRR, who are just taking the short-term easy way out--there are other ways to run a City besides having 1 employee for every 35 residents, spending money on things people don't want like $55 million for two parks in front of City Hall, and then always having to have your hand out for more money, so you take developers around on bus trips and INVITE them to develop the City some more.. Melkonians had a plan. Others may. I heard someone mention residents should be able to rent out parts of homes to tourists. After all, if we need tourist space so much we'll sell out the block in front of the Pier--ruin our priceless view, clog up that part some more, make it likely some day even those tourists we sold out the City for will say it's too crowded to come here--then why not let ordinary people profit from that need? The City can have a bed tax from us too.
We just had an election. You might notice we did not get even one of our candidates elected, so the vote against us is still 5-2. Recalling two if it worked would be great, but if it didn't work--a real possibility, since as I repeat, we just lost an election--would set us further behind. Maybe a recall is a good idea and I just don't see it. I do see far more work that has to be done before 2014 to keep us far too busy to do a recall. O'Connor and Holbrook will be running then, if they run.. A lot of organizing work will be necessary even for that election, and two years is not a lot of time to go from 7,000 to 20,000 votes on our side. Someone also told me it takes lots of money to do a recall. I have not seen an abundance of money on our side, so I prefer to put my efforts where I think working with what we have will be effective. Working together with you is clearly impossible, since it's your way or get trashed. Let me know when you change your style so anyone can work with you, which I have not seen happen yet. Sorry to say that outright, but you insisted on a response.
The VTP Development Agreement is being discussed by the City Council Tuesday night at 6:30 at 1685 Main Street (4th Street exit off the 10, left at light, right at first street, park free in parking lot to the left--btw, the ugliest building in California, built by the City of SM). The more people who can come and state whatever their main point of view against this travesty is, the better. You can also e-mail comments to jing.yeo@smgov.net. Doing both would be very helpful. I also know that people who are in favor of tearing down old things of any type and building new, and of "cleaning out undesirable elements from the City" will also comment. I find their comments helpful in exposing the types of shallow, racist, young, white wannabes, for the most part, people who are in favor of this. No one over the age of 50 other than the developer and his friends has ever commented in favor of this development. We were here in 1965 and value what we had before the first demolition derby that led to rent control and now this one that will lead, we hope, to another uprising to set things right. A longer view is a large part of the value seniors can provide.