Post-Battered Commissioner Syndrome: There is Hope
By Frank Gruber
I have been spending most of my column researching and writing time
the past ten days or so reading the City of Santa Monica's "Land
Use and Circulation Element Strategy Framework" and trying to catch
either live or by video as much of the Planning Commission's hearings
on the document as I can. (The hearings will continue this week with
meetings Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.)
Which means that I don't have much yet to say about the tome or the
commission's take on it, except that I do want to say something about
the commission itself.
Which is, what a difference four years and three former members make.
Longtime readers of this column know that in its early years I could
always get an outraged column out of watching a commission meeting.
But that ended when the City Council in 2003 voted not to reappoint
Commissioner Kelly Olsen to a second term, replacing him with Terry
O'Day, and then Commissioner Geraldine Moyle resigned soon afterwards
-- she was replaced by Gwynne Pugh. Later for good measure the council
did not reappoint Commissioner Arlene Hopkins and replaced her with
Hank Koning.
Ever since then (during which time there have been more personnel changes
as commissioners reached the end of the customary two terms) the commission
has been a columnist's nightmare: a body that goes about its job quietly
and competently. The commission's current careful and constructive analysis
of the LUCE framework is no exception.
What's a columnist looking for the outrage to do? It's not like the
City is going to sue dry cleaners for not having exhaustive price lists
every week.
After the City Council did not grant Mr. Olsen a second term I wrote
that I had hopes that the remaining commissioners would recover from
their "battered commissioner syndrome" and do a good job.
("WHAT
I SAY: Since I've Been Gone," July 28, 2003)
I was right about that, I'm pleased to say, so right that the person
in local politics I feel most sorry for right now is Commissioner Julie
Lopez Dad. Ms. Dad was one of the commissioners I often criticized during
the Olsen years, but since then -- while there are certainly times I
don't agree with her -- she has been a model of conscientiousness.
The reason I feel sorry for her is that her second term ends June 30
and wisely the council rarely grants a third term to commissioners (and
for that reason it takes five votes to do so). While the commission
may conclude its work on the LUCE framework before June 30, review of
the LUCE documents themselves will come in the months after the council
approves the framework. Ms. Dad has worked so hard on the LUCE that
I wonder if there is some means for her to get a three or six month
extension.
* * *
I have one comment to make about the end of the Dianne Talarico years
(all two of them) at the School District, which is that can the School
Board not conduct its typical "nationwide search" for her
replacement?
Maybe our problem is a Santa Monica/Malibu/Westside obsession with
how special we are. Let's be honest -- we've got a small school district.
Do we need to find the best, most forward-thinking, most fabulous educator
in the world to run it? Why would such a person want to stick his or
her future on our wagon?
Isn't there a competent educator available who already has a home within
commuting distance?
* * *
Reading about the cyclist killed on Fourteenth Street last Wednesday
made me recall my own serious bike accident last January. And reading
the story about the pedestrian dying in hospital from the hit-and-run
accident a month ago made me think about a friend of mine who was laid
up in bed for three weeks after being hit a month ago by car when he
was crossing Ocean Park Boulevard. ("Bicyclist
Struck and Killed in Pico Neighborhood," May 30, 2008 and
"Police Search for Hit-and-Run Driver," May 30,2008)
What it made me think about is how we take for granted so much carnage
on our streets. Ten people died and scores were injured at the Farmers
Market and it was international news. The City's settlement of the lawsuit
made the front page of the L.A. Times.
Meanwhile it seems like every month or so someone is killed going from
one place to another in Santa Monica.
As a cyclist there's one oddity I've noted, however, which is that
in countries -- in Europe or China, for instance -- where many more
people bike for routine transportation, many fewer cyclists wear helmets.
You see pictures or videos of swarms of cyclists in Dutch or Danish
cities, and few of them have helmets. Perhaps they are in denial of
reality -- my doctor told me than my helmet saved my life -- but the
fact is that neither they nor the cars around them are going fast.
Streets in America are built for speed, and encourage speed, and are
therefore intrinsically unsafe. As a cyclist I find myself trying to
keep up with traffic. I don't remember the spill I took, which occurred
at the corner of 11th and Ocean Park, but no doubt I was hurtling down
the hill from 14th.
Pedestrians are routinely faced with the problem of crossing streets
against traffic that is going too fast to stop in time from when the
motorist is able to see the pedestrian step off the curb, even if the
pedestrian is being cautious. An average driver going 40 miles per hour
needs 164 feet to stop his car -- that's more than half the length of
a typical Santa Monica east-west block.
Yet cars regularly go more than 40 on our boulevards. There is no way
for these streets to be safe. If anything else in our society were this
unsafe -- our spinach supply, for instance -- people would be in panic
mode.
But we all worship velocity more than vegetables. |
