He Don't Get No Respect

By Frank J. Gruber

Whether it was a specific event or a general course of conduct, Kevin McKeown has seriously annoyed some number of his fellow Santa Monica City Council members, and once again, Mr. McKeown will not be mayor. (see story)

I was surprised. Two years ago Pam O'Connor blocked Mr. McKeown from becoming mayor, but when, at the Nov. 28 Council meeting Mr. McKeown made the special effort to propose that the Council adopt a motion supporting Ms. O'Connor's reelection to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board, I figured the two of them must have buried the hatchet.

And when, at last week's meeting, before the Council was to elect the mayor and mayor pro tem, Santa Monica's wisest chronic testifier, Jerry Rubin, addressed the Council Members and suggested they do the right and obvious thing, and split the two-year term between Mr. McKeown and Herb Katz, the two long-term members who have served as mayor, I was sure someone on the dais would get the idea.

And then when Ms. O'Connor herself, in the first nomination of the night, nominated an all-SMRR team of Richard Bloom to be mayor and Mr. McKeown to be mayor pro tem, I figured that Ms. O'Connor was signaling at least that she had no great reservations against Mr. McKeown getting the mayoral honor, so long as she wasn't the one nominating him.

But then things went downhill for Mr. McKeown. His supporter Ken Genser nominated him for a two-year term as mayor, without nominating a mayor pro tem. This was a nice gesture, but there was no indication that there were enough votes to elect Mr. McKeown to a two-year term.

Then outgoing mayor Bob Holbrook made a bipartisan, split "condominium" nomination, proposing that Mr. Katz (non-SMRR) and Richard Bloom (SMRR) share the two years, alternating as mayor and mayor pro tem.

Mr. Genser then, to make his nomination symmetrical with the other two, and also bipartisan, added Mr. Katz to be mayor pro tem for two years. But no one made a motion that would combine Messrs. Katz and McKeown in a sharing arrangement.

The initial vote went three (Katz, Holbrook, Shriver) for the Bloom/Katz condominium, two (O'Connor & Bloom) for Bloom/McKeown, and two (Genser & McKeown) for McKeown/Katz. Before all her colleagues had completed their mental arithmetic, however, Ms. O'Connor switched her vote to the Bloom/Katz split.

What would have happened if Mr. Genser had fashioned his McKeown/Katz administration the way Jerry Rubin had suggested it -- one year for each as mayor? What if Mr. Holbrook had paired Mr. Katz in his bipartisan arrangement with the SMRR-endorsed Mr. McKeown instead of Mr. Bloom?

Perhaps nothing different, but, in any case, by switching her vote so quickly after the initial deadlocked vote, Ms. O'Connor was the decider, and Mr. McKeown will have to wait two years for another chance and mayoral glory.

A few years ago I would not have supported Mr. McKeown for mayor myself. He was a Green Party member and I was still sore about the 2000 election. Fact is, I'm still sore (although since Nov. 7 the pain has abated somewhat, thank you very much), but Mr. McKeown has left the Green Party.

I have had plenty of disagreements with Mr. McKeown, but he is a more than conscientious City Council Member. He and Mr. Katz both deserved to be mayor and it is too bad that both those of his colleagues who like Mr. McKeown and those who evidently don't couldn't show a bit more imagination and courtesy and let him have the job for a year.

* * *

I attended the special School Board meeting last Monday and I am not going to pretend that after that mind-numbing experience I understand how California funds its schools and all the different layers of oversight and governance well enough to say whether the District's new contract with the teachers' union has created an imminent big financial problem, as is the view of most of the Financial Oversight Committee and former C.F.O. Winston Braham, or a manageable possible future problem, as is the view of F.O.C. member Patricia Hoffman, District Superintendent Diane Talarico, and President of the local teachers' union, Harry Keiley.

After discussing the situation with Ms. Hoffman, Mr. Keiley, and Paul Silvern, the Chair of the F.O.C., after the meeting, however, I am happy to report that they all believe it's a good idea for the District to undergo the "top to bottom" financial review that it is about to receive under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Ironically I had to leave last Monday's meeting a little early because I had to hurry home. We were eating an early dinner so that my wife could represent us at a 7:00 p.m. meeting at Samohi of parents of children in the school's wind ensemble; the meeting was about plans for the young musicians to play at Carnegie Hall in the spring.

How crazy is it that we have a school district that has a high school band good enough to be invited to play at Carnegie Hall? Just nuts, but then what we count on as normal here is way beyond the usual expectations, and that's why the public schools here are so popular.

Of course, popularity won't excuse profligacy, but these days there also needs to be room for an attitude of "nothing ventured, nothing gained." The opponents of public spending are so vociferous in today's political culture that it's important to be aggressive in pointing out a need for spending when spending is needed.

The gist of the problem as the F.O.C. has expressed it is that if you follow out the spending implications of this year's agreement with the teachers, based on current expectations of income you will find that the District's current reserve of about six percent of a year's budget will rapidly decline to below three percent, the state-mandated (and prudent) minimum, and soon reach zero.

What concerned me even more was that these projections going out three years predicted a big shortfall without assuming that the teachers would receive additional raises when they negotiate next year and the year after that.

I asked union president Harry Keiley about that. In reply, Mr. Keiley's initial point was that the analysis the F.O.C. was looking at was flawed because it did not take into account that the average teacher salary, and the District's aggregate expense, increased much more slowly than the percentage increase in pay scale contained in the contract. That was because each year the District had considerable turnover, with younger, less well-paid teachers taking the place of more highly paid veterans.

He told me, for instance, that since 2002 the average teacher salary in the District has increased only 2.9 percent, from $58,300 to $60,000, despite the fact that the pay scale has increased 12.13 percent since 2001. For the past five years or so, each year the District has had to replace on average nearly 100 of its 740 or so teachers.

So Mr. Keiley does not believe the District will have the problem the F.O.C. predicts, at least not based on teacher salaries. As for next year's contract, he made no predictions, but he pointed out that in the past the union has based its demands on how much money was available.

Three contracts ago, for instance, after Gov. Schwarzenegger failed to fund education fully in accordance with Prop. 98, the union accepted a zero percent raise. But given the recent relatively robust increase in funding (5.9 percent), the union felt justified in bargaining for a significant increase of five percent.

One of the most interesting, or perhaps surprising, comments at Monday's meeting came from former School Board member and current F.O.C. member Patricia Hoffman. She said that she believed the District could solve its financial problems, or prospective problems, by taking a hard look at existing programs that might not be producing the results that were originally predicted.

While Ms. Hoffman did not mention any specific programs -- nor did she in a subsequent interview -- it was surprising to hear such a "Republican" comment coming from someone so identified with liberal politics.

But then Ms. Hoffman was on to a truth that believers in government must always remember -- that it's our responsibility to be the most critical evaluators of government programs. When we leave the critiquing to the opponents of government, we let them control the debate. That's been the lesson of the past 30 years during which the right reversed politics in this country.

Now that November 7 has given Democrats another chance, we need to keep our eyes on the ledger.