Feinstein Corrects Record and Beyond Hypocrisy

January 22, 2004

Dear Editor,

I would like to correct the record regarding whether I will run for re-election to the City Council this year.

Contrary to what was reported in your article, I have not made up my mind whether I will run.

Since I was not interviewed for your article (as I was not available at the time), I wanted to make my intentions clear.

I'd also like to draw your attention to the correct election totals from 2000, which are available on a link from the City Clerk's web site.

The numbers you cited were preliminary from election night, and do not include the thousands of absentee votes counted after the election.

While we are on the topic of elections, I want to encourage community members to visit the City Clerk's election archive web site.

This site contains local election results dating back to 1975 and provides an excellent opportunity to (re)familiarize ourselves with an important part of our history.

In this vein, on Tuesday at City Council I will propose a modest improvement to the election archives site, to make it even more informative for the community.

I hope we can create a flow chart that graphically displays who was in office and when in our history. Many cities have this. I think it would be helpful to remind ourselves who served in office together with whom and when in our history.

Michael Feinstein
City Councilmember
http://www.feinstein.org

January 22, 2004

Dear Editor,

I am appalled that the Santa Monica Malibu School District is whining about private funds (charitable donations) not being distributed evenly. If there is misconduct, or civil right violation taking place, these violations are in the use of public funds. We should be focusing on:

• $5 million to $6 million a year of City of Santa Monica money that goes to the rich and predominately white Santa Monica Malibu School District, with not a penny of this public money going to the poor and predominately black schools of South Central.
  
• $9 million a year of parcel tax money that that goes to the rich and predominately white Santa Monica Malibu School District, with not a penny of this public money going to the poor and predominately black schools of South Central.
  
• $13 million of Prop X money that has gone to the rich and predominately white Santa Monica Malibu School District, and not a penny of this public money going to the poor and predominately black schools of South Central.

To be complaining about the inequity in the use of private funds, when there is such egregious inequity in the use of public funds, goes beyond hypocrisy.

If this whole matter was not ironic enough, this is the same school district that is currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s Special Education Monitoring Unit, for violating the civil right of handicapped children.

This is also the district whose solution, for its misconduct, is to hire more lawyers so it can get away with violating the civil rights of handicapped children even more extensively.

Sincerely,

Jeff Segal
Santa Monica