Farewell But Not Goodbye

By Frank Gruber

Jan. 23, 2012 -- Department of Personal Announcements: after 578 “What I Say” columns, today’s will be my last. I’m going to run for election to the Santa Monica City Council, and one can’t be a journalist and a politician at the same time (despite what you’d think watching Fox News).

Writing this column has meant a lot to me. For 11 years it’s shaped my week, most of which have begun with me not knowing what I will write about. But the muse known as the people of Santa Monica has never failed me. When the weekend comes, and I’m writing, the problem is always figuring out what not to write about, and what to cut to get the word count down to a reasonable number.

In 1983, when I was a young lawyer, I moved into Santa Monica. It was a momentous move for me, but I wasn’t thinking about what jurisdiction I’d be living in. It was the most important move of my life because my future wife and I were giving up our respective apartments in Venice and taking the plunge into a life together.

We found a little house on Raymond Avenue to rent -- one of those cottages in Ocean Park that shares a small lot with two other houses (and in that case, a giant avocado tree). The house was only a few blocks from my future wife’s apartment just off Rose Avenue, and I’m not sure we were aware that we were crossing over into a different city.

But living in Santa Monica changed our lives. Sure, we would have met people and made friends anywhere, and lived our lives, but it wouldn’t have been the same.

It wouldn’t have been the same because in Santa Monica, “it’s all local.”

Our son was born at a hospital that local doctors founded in 1926. From the day Henry entered pre-school to the day he graduated high school he could be walked -- and later could walk himself -- to school. The parents of his friends became our friends -- we even formed a baby-sitting co-op that lasted for most of 10 years.

When it was time for me to leave my law partnership and set up my own office, I could rent one in Downtown Santa Monica.

And for me (less so my wife!) “it’s all local” included the politics. I lived here almost 10 years before getting involved, but once I did, local government became my passion, in a way that couldn’t happen if we’d stayed in Venice.

Over in Venice, you’re one of about 200,000 represented by one council member, and by a mayor who represents you and four million others. The council member and the mayor do their representing in a far-off tower that’s hard to get to, where they have their meetings during the day, while you’re at work. They get elected in the spring of odd-numbered years when few people vote. Much of the important work is controlled by unelected commissions where you don’t have any representation.

It’s a system that resembles democracy the way a plastic banana resembles a real banana.

I didn’t know it, but when we crossed that border and rented that house on Raymond, I’d bought a ticket, an E-Ticket as they used to say, for the most exciting and meaningful show on earth: a functioning local democracy.

Small is not always good. Small in Bell hasn’t been good. Small in Vernon hasn’t been good. And you need big for big things. We’re not going to turn the Congress of the United States into a town meeting. We’re not going to do foreign policy by community workshop. Closer to home, each city in Los Angeles County can’t have its own transportation system.

But big is not good for fixing real or metaphorical potholes. When “local” government is distant and top-down, it shows on the ground.

Santa Monica is a Three Bears city (“not too little/not too big”), it has a population that pays attention, and 30 years ago it had elected officials who moved local elections to Novembers of even-numbered years. It’s got a long list of boards and commissions and yet a City Council that never met a decision it didn’t want to make itself. It’s a city with a local school system and a local community college, run by local boards.

And so what do you know, but people vote and show up at City Hall, and they talk politics, and they even read some local columnists.

Columnists who have a lot to write about because within its 8.5 square miles Santa Monica has nearly every issue that affects cities today: from every education issue from funding, to the achievement gap, to special education; to homelessness; to housing issues, land use and transportation (traffic!); to youth violence and ethnic and racial conflicts; to economic development and public finance. Etc., etc. You name it, we’ve got it.

That’s half the reason this column has been such a wonderful weekly chore. The other half -- and here I risk pandering to the voters I hope will choose me to represent them -- is the people you get to write about. I’ve often disagreed with Santa Monicans, but I’ve never written about any who didn’t care about the place.

And so, a few thanks. To Jorge Casuso and Iris Oliveras, the publishers of The Lookout, and to all their reporters whose work I’ve relied on these 11 years. To every Santa Monican, and this goes for government staff members, too, who has ever tried to explain something to me. To all who have shared their opinions with me. To my family.

But since I’m not going anywhere, I’ll end this long run not with a farewell, but with “Fare well.”

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