Bashing McKeown and Beside the Point

March 10, 2003

Dear Editor,

In a recent editorial concerning the development permits for the proposed Lantana project, Frank Gruber used the opportunity to bash our City Council and in particular Kevin McKeown for their unanimous approval last May of a resolution putting our City on record as endorsing federal trade remedies to recover film jobs lost to Canada through that country's unfair trade practices. ("WHAT I SAY: Feel-Good Resolutions and Train Wreck Planning," March 10)

Mr. Gruber characterizes the resolution as a "feel good" measure, but to the thousands of below-the-line film and television workers who reside in Santa Monica and are desperately trying to survive as our industry is increasingly being shipped offshore in search of foreign film subsidies, the Santa Monica resolution was both a beacon in the night from the City we call home, and a useful weapon in our political toolbox as we wage our campaign in support of our 301(a) filing with the U.S. Trade Representative.

The City Council should be congratulated for its unanimous bipartisan support of this resolution, which has the potential to contribute to relieving not only the economic hardship of working families, but of the countless small businesses that serve our industry as well.

Mr. Gruber took Kevin McKeown to task for his characterization of "boardroom bean-counters who prize profits above people." But how would you describe it, Mr. Gruber? A handful of corporations come into town, buy everything up, and then ship the jobs overseas in return for kickbacks.

Mr. Gruber seeks to turn Kevin McKeown's remarks about the media giants, and by extension our campaign for trade remedies, as against the producers, rather than as a campaign against the handful of global media monopolies that ultimately profit from shipping the jobs offshore. All we're trying to do, and all the City Council voted to do, was to try to end the foreign subsidies in accordance with our trade agreements which forbid them.

Like Mr. Gruber I have some experience in this industry as well. I've worked behind the camera for 31 years, and I've seen good times and bad, but never anything like this. The outflow of jobs Mr. Gruber seems to think is necessary because "profits in any given production are so hard to predict" or because "there is never enough money being invested in whatever is being produced" have forced our wages and conditions into a downward spiral.

Electricians on my lighting crew are earning $14.21 an hour while the average hourly wage in America is $15.08. How long we can maintain an experienced labor pool under these conditions is anyone's guess. Mr. Gruber seems to think the answer to the producer's economic pressures is to seek taxpayer bailouts in foreign countries. Perhaps he's an advocate of similar corporate welfare in this country as well, though he didn't touch on that issue.

My suggestion to the producers would be to come up with a different business model -- one that was based on scripts that people actually wanted to watch and that could be produced and turn a profit without the help of public assistance. This is how it was done back in the 1970's when I broke into the biz, and this is actually how most businesses in America that aren't hooked into special tax breaks survive. If a picture can't be made without public assistance, maybe it shouldn't be made at all.

As to the Lantana project, I would caution any planners who are basing their projections on an uninterrupted expansion of digital entertainment jobs to pay close attention to the focused campaigns in other countries to remove those jobs from our shores through the use of subsidies and low cost labor. Untold numbers of these jobs in CGI and animation have already gone to such countries as China, India, Great Britain, and of course Canada. Just two weeks ago Canada raised their Federal film subsidy substantially and Vancouver declared a new drive to secure more US digital entertainment jobs.

All too frequently, we see the enticement of jobs thrown in as a cover for unwanted or unneeded development. We saw it in the Ballona Wetlands development with the promise of soundstages that was later withdrawn, and we saw the same false promise of sound stages in the North Hollywood development.

In the end, the sound stages were built, but they were built in Vancouver where the jobs are, not in LA, and so it will be with the digital jobs, unless the underlying cause of runaway jobs is addressed. Simply building more job facilities will not bring the jobs back.

If we can find more lawmakers in our cities and legislatures like Kevin McKeown who will champion people over profits and are not beholden to corporate interests, we can build the power it will take to overcome the Motion Picture Association of America who wants to keep the subsidies in place, and to file the 301(a) that will knock out the Canadian subsidies, bring our jobs back, and pump life back into the thousands of small businesses that serve our industry.

I trust this hoped for outcome will be as beneficial to Mr. Gruber as it will be to us.

Michael Everett
Santa Monica

March 10, 2003

Dear Editor,

Ken Breisch apparently believes that Proposition A should be opposed because the United States Supreme Court upheld the validity of New York City's landmarks ordinance in the 1978 case of Penn Central Transportation v. New York City. ("LETTERS: A Little History," March 10) Ken's argument is, however, entirely beside the point.

First, just because the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of a law doesn't meant the decision, or the law, is right -- remember "separate but equal" in Plessy v. Ferguson?

Second, Ken should remember that Penn Central dealt with a commercial building -- Grand Central Station in New York -- not with individual homes. And the New York ordinance, unlike Santa Monica's, included a method of compensating the landowner for the value of what was lost as a result of the landmark status.

Third, and most importantly, the campaign to pass Proposition A has nothing to do with the constitutionality, or lack of same, of the City's landmarks ordinance -- it has to do with its lack of basic fairness.

I do not believe I have a right to tell my neighbors that they must leave their homes the way they are simply because I think they have such historical or architectural significance that they should be preserved. And because I don't think I should have that power, I don't think I have the right to give the City bureaucracy that same power.

I have no quarrel with the notion that historic preservation programs, when properly administered, can enhance the community's quality of life. I just don't think I have the right to enhance my quality of life over the backs of my neighbors by subjecting them to restrictions not applicable to all of us.