With support from a broad community coalition, Mike Feinstein swept to victory for a second term on the Santa Monica City Council in November.
In the first meeting of the newly seated council, Feinstein's six council colleagues, one of them a fellow Green, then chose Feinstein to serve as Mayor for the next two years. That makes Santa Monica the largest U.S. city (pop: 93,000) with a Green mayor.
Tenants, labor rights activists, environmentalists, slow and smart growth development advocates, parks and open space supporters - along with the police and fire unions - all came out in support of Feinstein. He finished first out of 13 candidates for four seats, and his 21,084 votes were the second highest total for any city council candidate in the city's history.
Feinstein's strong finish reflected his achievements and progressive agenda during his first four-year term: tenant protection and affordable housing, environment and sustainable development, and civil liberties and workers' rights.
Meanwhile he ranscended the city's traditional political lines that have historically divided over rent control by also championing issues of wide appeal - like more parks and open space, livable neighborhoods, support for youth and schools and increased resident voice in local decision-making.
Feinstein ran a positive, issues-based campaign, emphasizing his record in office. He appeared in three televised candidate debates, submitted a free 200-word ballot statement that the city mailed to residents, and taped a free, televised five-minute statement that ran on the citywide government channel (the later a program that he campaigned on in 1996 and implemented once in office.)
Leveraging one of his strengths as a candidate and elected official - personality - Feinstein walked door to door to meet thousands of local residents. This mirrored his style in office, a public official seen at most community meetings and open to hearing from all sides of an issue.
Feinstein raised $30,000 and hired Standard Communications - political consultants familiar with Santa Monica and the Green platform to refine his message and direct his campaign. They designed lawn signs, crafted the fliers he walked with door-to-door, and targeted his direct-mail campaign.
Feinstein also bought ad space in local papers as well as on their websites (which then linked to his own campaign website www.feinstein.org/2000)
Evolving from neighborhood activist to elected official, Feinstein's political path has been bottom-up. It began when he was appointed to a citizens' task force in 1989 that took on the task of updating the neighboring Main Street General Plan. He helped create dedicated bike lanes along the city's busy commercial strip and narrowed the number of traffic lanes - changes that brought a more pedestrian feel to Main Street.
From there, Feinstein became active with his neighborhood organization, and then applied his political energy citywide. In 1993 and 1994, he opposed a proposal to increase commerical development in the city's Civic Center, located in an already-congested area a block from the beach. Ultimately Feinstein and other local Greens, aligning with then-State Sen. Tom Hayden, gathered petition signatures and forced the Civic Center project onto the ballot for a public vote.
The developer drastically outspent residents - laying out $250,000 compared to their $5,000 - in a campaign that successfully recast the issue as 'pro-public safety, anti-homeless', instead of about development. Feinstein and allies lost that vote 60% to 40%. But fate smiled on them, as five years later, the developer was still not able to finance the project, leaving a window open for change.
The experience of "losing to city hall" in 1994 led Feinstein to consider a different tack. Instead of trying to change the minds of council members, he concluded it was better to get elected and make change himself. In 1996, he won as a first-time candidate, finishing second out of 13 candidates vying for four seats.
By 1999, Feinstein had a five-to-two progressive majority on the council, including one other Green Party member, Kevin McKeown, who was elected in 1998. In a sweet victory, Feinstein became a linchpin in the city's decision to buy most of the land at the Civic Center site that had been lost in the 1994 referendum. The 11.3-acre purchase was the most significant land acquisition in the city's history.
Current plans for the site anticipate parks and open space, affordable housing units, childcare facilities and making the area an alternative energy, conservation and efficiency district.
Feinstein's election in 1996 marked a shift in Santa Monica politics, a transformation that has aligned the local slow-growth movement more closely with the tenants' rights movement. And the city has also seen a new emphasis on workers' rights in the past five years, focusing on the low-paying jobs and working conditions that are the backbone of this beachfront city's successful tourism industry.
Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR) has been the local progressive electoral force since 1979 when SMRR pushed through the charter amendment ballot measure that established rent control. In the early days, SMRR elected left-leaning members to the City Council and Rent Control Board to protect tenants and keep a legally-imposed ceiling on rents. These efforts, combined with the extensive network of social service programs established by the new SMRR Council majority, left Santa Monica in the early 1980's with the nickname 'the Peoples' Republic'.
In 1995, SMRR joined forces with the rejuvenated Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), Local 814 to successfully oppose a union decertification campaign driven by the management of the city's only unionized hotel. LOCAL 814 made its debut into city council politics in 1996 by endorsing Feinstein and two others running on SMRR's slate. Working closely with SMRR, union workers phone-banked, precinct-walked and ran an effective get-out-the-vote operation.
The following year, flying in the face of the hotel's union-busting campaign, Feinstein and other councilmembers joined in solidarity with hotel workers, a movement that also drew local clergy and community leaders. The coalition, known as 'Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism', helped force the sale of the hotel to a new company, which has negotiated a fair deal with the union. Today, there are two union hotels in Santa Monica - the result of a community-labor coalition working with a progressive council.
SMRR, HERE Local 814, Greens and neighborhood activists have formed a broad and progressive coaltion in Santa Monica. The groups phone-banked and identified 13,000 likely voters for their progressive slate last November. And even more so than in 1996, they helped turn out those voters on election day, by dispatching dozens of volunteers into Santa Monica's neighborhoods and visiting voters at home. SMRR also ran its own extensive direct mail campaign to complement the get-out-the-vote operation..
The same local progressive coalition helped elect McKeown in 1998. Two years later, it also propelled Green Jeff Sklar to the Rent Control Board - making Santa Monica one of four cities (Madison, WI, Santa Fe, NM Sebastopol, CA are the others) that can boast of electing at least three Green officials.
The City Council has also appointed six Greens to Santa Monica's city boards and commissions: Jan Williamson (Arts Commission), Sandy Grant (Environmental Task Force), Kathleen Masser (Housing Commission), Josefina Santiago (Recreation & Parks Board) and Linda Sullivan (Pier Restoration Corporation.)
Source: The Green Pages
