Bobby Shriver To Run for City Council

Kathleen Herd Masser
Mirror contributing writer
  
   The temperature of an already fevered local election was kicked up a notch on Monday, when Bobby Shriver joined the race for City Council. The candidate was in Boston, but his attorney, Colleen McAndrews, delivered the papers on his behalf just 40 minutes before the filing deadline.
   Shriver, 50, is the eldest of five children born to Sargent Shriver – architect of the Peace Corps (and its first director), former ambassador to France, and George McGovern's running mate in the 1972 presidential race – and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of John F. Kennedy and founder of Special Olympics. His sister Maria is married to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
   Though he has devoted much of his life to public service and currently heads the State Parks Commission, this will be Shriver's first bid for elective office. The Yale Law School graduate has worked as an attorney and a reporter, and is a former part owner of the Baltimore Orioles.
   A 17-year Santa Monica resident, Shriver is best known locally for leading the fight against hedge height regulations, nationally for producing a series of Christmas albums that raised $60 million for Special Olympics, and internationally for his work with DATA, an organization he co-founded to alleviate AIDS and poverty in Africa.
  
   In his candidate's statement, Shriver says, "My life's main focus has been starting and managing projects to help people. As a council member, I will focus on traffic congestion, opportunities for youth, and a regional solution to Santa Monica's transient population.
   "I will insist that all Santa Monicans be treated with respect. No renter will be harassed out of his or her home. No resident will be subjected to arbitrary fines."
   Shriver anticipates no problems in working with a council dominated by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights. "I get along fine with the SMRR crowd," he says. "They stand for a lot of the things I've worked for."
   Though the hedge dispute drew him into Santa Monica's public process, he is not a single issue candidate. "The issue was never the hedges themselves," he says. "The issue was how you are treated."
   Shriver recalls an Ocean Park woman who was reduced to tears during testimony in the council chambers. "I don't like the way people are bullied by the system," he says. "I've spent my life working for disabled kids who get bullied, poor people in Africa who get bullied. The use of criminal process against residents is a bullying tactic. People shouldn't be terrified of their local government."