Bloom and Others Weigh in on Playhouse, Plus More on Elections

October 8, 2000

Dear Editor:

When I take my 15-month old daughter to a brand new toddler park a block from my house, or to one of the many wonderful library programs, or to a community-wide meeting on Lifelong Learning, or to a City Council meeting where money is allocated for the public school system, or on a walk past beautiful affordable housing, or when she drinks water free of MTBE, I thank my lucky stars that she is growing up under the SMRR leadership.

Ken Genser, Richard Bloom and Mike Feinstein along with Pam O'Connor serve this city intelligently, creatively and honorably. With their policy setting and decision making powers, these dedicated Council members give the resources of this City back to where they belong -- to all the people of the city. To the latest City Council wannabes, wake up and smell the roses.

Beth Leder-Pack
Santa Monica

Dear Editor,

In this day and age, when many parents are afraid to let their children roam free in their neighborhoods, the children often spend inordinate amounts of time devoted to television watching. For some, unfortunately, this mesmerizing TV experience becomes an all too cherished sanctuary from perceived unfriendliness of the outside world.

It is important for children to explore the out-of-doors through play as a way to learn about boundaries, both environmental and social. Playhouses, such as Jacob's, give children an opportunity for socialization, decision making and solitary experience necessary for healthy, joyous development.

It follows that the Levy's child-friendly, community sensitive addition to their house should be available to future residents' children. The City Council's demand that the Levy's tear down Jacob's playhouse upon moving is an unconscionable assault upon those in the community that expect their Government to support decent family values.

Martin Baer
Retired teacher and Camp Director

Dear Editor,

I was incensed at reading about Mayor Genser's campaign against the Levy family and their son's playhouse. It might be a bit more understandable had Mr. Levy not bent over backwards not only to ensure that the playhouse is up to code as given to him by city building officials, but to make all of the alterations his neighbor requested. Once the City of Santa Monica officially signed off on the plans, that should have been the end of the story.

With the back door deals and favors Mayor Genser is doing for his friend, it is no wonder that our city has the nickname of "Santa Mafia." Mayor Genser should have told his friend that she would have to go through established channels to make her complaint. His forwarding the complaint to the planning department and the city manager , then telling the director of planning that the playhouse "might be in violation" was unnecessary and illegal interference. I find it hard to believe that Mr.Genser would do the same for any other constituent.

The most important thing to remember is that we are talking about a child's playhouse. It's a place where dreams should be encouraged, not demolished.

Chelsea Cochrane
Santa Monica

Dear Editor,

With respect to the Levy playhouse issue, a recent writer complains that Mr. Levy's neighbor should have gone "through established channels to make her complaint." As your elected official, I believe that I am, in fact, an established channel for complaints.

By way of example, a couple of years ago, my mom and dad's next door neighbors in Los Angeles built an illegal wall next to their house. Their first response was to call their councilman, Mike Feuer, who immediately had his staff go to work on the problem.

My mom and dad, retired and in their mid-80's, were otherwise defenseless against their neighbor. The point is: the ability to lodge a complaint with one's elected officials and expecting a reasonable response is a critical part of the American system of government.

The Levy matter is no longer about Jacob Levy's playhouse -- there are other, more sinister, motives at play. The lawsuit was filed even though the city had already stated it would not enforce its controversial order regarding the playhouse. The city has offered to allow the playhouse to remain.

Nor is the Levy case, as some would have us believe, about what Mayor Genser did or did not say to city staff.

The main goal of the Levy case is to squelch public complaints by intimidating your elected officials from doing their job by making sure that our city employees address those complaints.

Mr. Levy is represented by Santa Monica's most prolific developer lawyer. This attorney has his own agenda as one who is frequently at odds with the city council over development policies. This attorney enjoys uncommonly good access to our city staff to lobby on behalf of his clients. It serves the development community's purpose well if they can reduce the influence of your elected officials because it increases their own influence.

Voters are entitled to have full access to a responsive government. We should not let the developer attorneys deny us the benefits of this important American tradition.

Richard Bloom
City Councilman

Dear Editor,

I just saw a news feature on TV about the City of Santa Monica versus a five-year-old child's playhouse. In reading your initial story and follow-up letters about this issue, I become more and more stunned that the city government is wasting our tax dollars on such a ludicrous invasion of a person's right to live and build on their own property.

It seems that the Levys made every effort to comply with all the regulations and the city only made up new ones when a neighbor complained.

Why must the City waste the time and money to tear down something they have already given permission for? Are they crazy? Why not try to solve the real social issues of our times and leave the five-year-old alone? What's the real political agenda here?

Jean Utley

Dear Editor,

It hardly seems worth noting in cities as enlightened as Santa Monica and Malibu that there is a real stinker of a proposition on the November ballot.

Of course I refer to Tim Draper's flawed voucher initiative, Prop 38. Mr. Draper has vowed to funnel millions (as much as $40,000,000) of his own money into television ads this election cycle to see if P.T. Barum understated his case ("a fool born every minute").

Should Prop. 38 pass it would grant a $4,000 voucher to the parents of every school-aged child in the state of California -- including those already attending private schools. Thus before removing a single child from any poorly performing school, Mr. Draper would remove about $3,000,000,000 (yes, that's billion dollars) from the state budget to supplement the incomes of those already willing and able to pay for a private school.

And really, how far is $4,000 going to get you in local private schools? Christmas at
Crossroads?! Voters have seen this before, but Mr. Draper's TV ads seem as endless as they are one sided (and empty minded). Support our wonderful public schools (see the Lookout's report on SMMUSD's terrific results for 1999-2000. No on Prop. 38. Support our teachers and children.

Marc J. Sanschagrin
Teacher, McKinley Elementary

Dear Editor:

Michael Sieverts is raising some questions that are worth dealing with. I see our hotels this way: The CITY of Santa Monica, created the golden goose, by passing prop. S (No more hotels in the zone). The hotel owners are collecting the golden eggs, and they do not want to share it with the working poor in their hotels.

There are 3,500 workers in the hotel zone. Michael says that Shutters does share it, so why are they so bad? There is no guarantee that Shutters tomorrow will change its mind if its profit (over 10 million dollars a year) will go down, and will cut the
workers salaries.

All the hotel in Beverly Hills are union, why are they not union in Santa Monica? The Beverly Hills hotels learned that a union is a good idea. It safeguards the attendance and the quality of the work force.

What are OUR hotels doing? They are spending money a whole lot of it to give us a choice to vote on Prop. KK (pronounced KA KA in Spanish) that will effect 62 workers that don't even work in the hotels -- these 62 will be working for the city of Santa Monica.

Who really needs this kind of an interchange in our community? It is shameful for any hotel to spend these obscene amounts of dollars to give 62 people who do not work for them to get what the city would easily comply with. They also added a poison pill where the city council will not be able to help the 3,500 workers in the zone.

I have lived here for 41 years and I have seen a whole lot but this takes the
cake. Vote NO on KK

Bruria Finkel
Santa Monica

Dear Editor,

In response to your article on the Chamber of Commerce City Council Candidate Forum on 10/3/00, I would like to correct the record in regards to the organization of my statements made at that luncheon.

In the 37th paragraph of your story about the Living Wage, this paragraph was followed by a comment made by Mr. Genser. I must remind you that Mr. Genser spoke five persons before myself on this issue. If you reverse the next two paragraphs, my comments would have been better received and understood. This was the way it happened.

On the last paragraph of the article on Preferential Parking, you have me quoted out of context. If you could add the following statement, it would properly form my intentions in regards to my statement. I was speaking about the SMRR platform for this election and it is "A vehicle free downtown Santa Monica". If that went into effect, this whole area East of Lincoln would be inundated with parking problem on top of the existing traffic congestions. So that's where "It's ridiculous..." comes in.

Please modify your story or make a notation that there is a follow up from a candidate on their statement. Thank you very much.

Chuck Allord
City Council Candidate

Dear Editor,

A funny thing happened while I was watching the Presidential Debates Tuesday night. I received a phone call from a SMRR volunteer. He called to advise me on how and whom I should vote for in the November election.

I could not hold back my laughter while asking this uninformed lad why he was calling to advise me when he knew nothing about the candidates in the election. I gave him a chance to register my name as a council candidate. Still he didn¹t have a clue. All he KNEW was that I should vote for Mayor Genser and vote no on KK.

I cheerfully let him know that I would be voting for only the non -SMRR endorsed candidates and yes on anything that would take their power away.

Donna Block
City Council Candidate