Flawed Plan,
Flawed Process

   Under Santa Monica City Council rules, when a Council member has a stake -– however slight or indirect –- in a matter, which comes before the Council, the member dutifully withdraws from the dais until the matter has been resolved.
   On Tuesday, February 5, the Council is scheduled to discuss and vote on whether to proceed with the Civic Center Specific Plan. The Plan was developed by the Civic Center Working Group, which was created by the Council. As it happens, three of its members are also members of the Council – Richard Bloom, Ken Genser and Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown.
   Clearly, Bloom, Genser and McKeown can be said to have a stake in the plan – not a financial stake (which is generally the basis for conflicts of interest), but a political and/or personal stake. Not only have they spent some political capital on the proposed plan, they have invested their brains and, yes, egos in it. To an extent, the success or failure of the plan as well as the public reaction to the plan will accrue to them. If it’s a winner, acclaimed by the public, they’re winners. Likewise, if it’s a flop, scorned by the public, they are flops.
   But when the plan comes before the Council, not only will Bloom, Genser and McKeown remain on the dais, as far as we know, they will participate in the discussion and vote on it. It’s rather like lawyer making his or her case in court and then donning a judge’s robes and making a ruling on the case.
   Since they took part in making the plan, Bloom, Genser and McKeown must favor it, and they only need one of the other four Council members’ votes to approve the plan and move it to the next stage.
   In this way, the City’s much-vaunted public process has been highjacked — with the public relegated to the sidelines as the Council dances with itself off into the sunset – with the Civic Center plan in its pocket.
   As we have said previously, and at length, we think the plan is fatally flawed, and, sadly, the process, in this instance, is as flawed as the plan.