My Record Promoting Democracy and Responsive Government in Santa Monica

I served on the Santa Monica City Council from 1996 to 2004, and was Mayor between 2000 and 2002.

• To promote a more informed electorate and to decrease the role of big money in politics, I successfully promoted an substantial increase in coverage on CityTV of ballot qualified candidates, valued at $12,000 to $15,000 worth of coverage per candidate today, as candidate statements, interviews and forums are broadcast for a month before the election on Santa Monica’s municipal channel CityTV.

• To increase voter turnout in special elections, I initiated the successful two-day weekend City Council special election in April 1999 (post-election report) and the all-postal mail initiative election in May 2003.

• To promote the public’s right to know, I led the creation of timely local referendum financial disclosure requirements in 2001, through an amendment to the City’s municipal code that requires financial disclosure for all initiative and referendum campaigns during the signature gathering period, instead of the regular calendar-based dates as required by state law, which don’t necessarily correspond to a local timeline.

• To promote the public’s right to know, in the late 1990s I successfully worked to get the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District School Board’s meeting’s broadcast on CityTV, something taken for granted today, but was not the case until then.

• To promote more representative local elections, I promoted ranked-choice voting for local elections.

• To promote more understanding and transparency in our city budgeting process, before the budget was on the internet, I initiated the ‘Bring the Budget to the People’ program, where City Staff tabled with the budget at our neighborhood farmer’s markets.