Reflections & Observations

Missing the Point

Last year, the venerable Santa Monica Pier which is owned by the City and managed by the Pier Restoration Corporation (PRC) lost a record $880,000. This was by no means its first loss, but it was by any measure its biggest loss.
   In an effort to stop the bleeding, the PRC decided a while ago to seek “corporate partners,” meaning companies which would pay for the privilege of attaching their names or their products to the legendary landmark. To those of us who love the Pier—resident and non-resident—this seemed utterly mad. The very idea of the stalwart old Pier which has somehow managed to survive everything—from storms to neglect to every kind of foolishness — being festooned with corporate logos and subjected to every kind of indignity (i.e.. TAKE A RIDE ON THE WHIZ BANG CEREAL MERRY-GO-ROUND) gave us the deep, deep blues.
   Recently, the PRC announced that it had signed its first corporate partner. Pepsi will pay $50,000 a year for three years for the soft drink franchise on the Pier. Under the terms of the deal, the PRC will get $50,000 for its marketing program. Pier lessees will get a price break on Pepsi products and Pepsi umbrellas. Pier visitors will get...Pepsi. All Pepsi.
   All the time.
   What’s wrong with this picture? Just about everything.
   Pepsi is a perfectly fine soft drink. But it is by no means the only soft drink and it is certainly not everyone’s favorite soft drink.
   Henceforth, diehard Dr. Pepper or Coke drinkers who go to the Pier will either have to go thirsty or smuggle cans of their own pop of choice onto the Pier and sip from them furtively — like those gents on street corners fondling bottles in brown paper bags. The Pier is a public place, owned by the people of Santa Monica. open to everyone. How can it then suddenly be off-limits to other soft drink makers? Is that not restraint of trade? And does any rational being believe that denying Pier visitors a choice of soft drinks is good marketing?
   The PRC is currently negotiating a new services agreement with the City. It has had nominal control of the Pier since 1983. During its run, we’ve seen the Pier Guidelines twisted every which way, renounced and overturned, Pier costs skyrocket and the Pier itself zazzed up like an old clown.
   And now these same people have begun trading away bits and pieces of the Pier.
   In the real world, with a record like that, they’d have long since been fired, but the unfortunate truth is that the City has never known what to make of the Pier and so, unless residents rise up in protest, the PRC will probably have its run extended, and the long, slow, sad diminution of the Pier will continue. 

A series of articles on the Pier begins in this issue of the Mirror.

The Undeclared War

A slow, quiet, undeclared war is underway in Santa Monica. Curiously, neither the war itself nor the combatants have been publicly acknowledged.
   It began with the battle over the Civic Center Specific Plan. Conjured by RAND, perfected by City Staff, approved by the Council, the Plan included the largest single commercial development in Santa Monica history and would have generated an additional 23,000 car trips in an already congested area of downtown Santa Monica.
   Along with RAND and City Hall, many residents favored the plan. Others, led by State Senator Tom Hayden and City Councilman-in-waiting Mike Feinstein opposed it. When the Council refused to put the plan to a vote of the people, opponents collected sufficient petition signatures to force a vote. In the ensuing campaign, RAND spent $250,000 to win votes, while opponents spent $6,000. Rand and the Plan won, by a 60 to 40% margin.
   That was four years ago. The Plan is in limbo for the moment, but the battle lines were drawn. On one side were people who favored what they saw as sensible growth. On the other side were people who felt that the City was growing too fast and the problems caused by such rapid and large-scale growth outweighed its benefits.
   This schism in viewpoint led ultimately to some Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) members, spearheaded by Council member Paul Rosenstein, to form a new political organization, the Civic Forum. SMRR and the Forum had their first head-to-head match in last fall’s election. When the dust had settled, SMRR had five seats on the seven-member Council.
   But battle over the Civic Center and the election wars were all preface to the current assault, which is seemingly apolitical. And the battlefield is not Third Street or the Civic Center, but the neighborhoods. Detractors call it “nimbyism,” meaning “not in my backyard,” but it can as easily be seen as the homesteaders fighting off the rustlers. Or, in this instance, citizens taking on City Hall, and the citizens are currently up, 2 to 0.
   North of Montana residents pushed the City to ban so-called “Monster Mansions,” and it did. Architectural photographer Jim Simmons’ powerful slide show, which showed fine old houses and apartment buildings being readied one after another for demolition, was certainly a factor in the City’s recently declared moratorium on new apartment buildings and condominiums. The last time citizens took the lead away from City Hall was in 1973 when they saved the Santa Monica Pier from Council-mandated demolition and ultimately took City Hall away from the businessmen who had controlled it for two generations.

Stay tuned.