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By Jorge Casuso
October 25 – The company that owns two luxury
beachfront hotels has taken the unprecedented step of targeting
a local City Council candidate in a series of hard-hitting ads
airing on cable television.
The ads – which are running on major cable networks viewed
by Santa Monica subscribers – target City Council member
Kevin McKeown and are part of a nearly half-a-million-dollar election
campaign funded by the Edward Thomas Management Company.
The three 30-second spots -- which are being shown on news, sports
and educational networks -- charge that the Santa Monicans for
Reners’ Rights council member is soft on homelessness and
crime.
“I haven’t seen this many homeless people in all
my life,” an elderly women on a park bench says in one of
the ads. “The City Council should be doing something more.
It’s a disgrace.”
The ad concludes with an “No” symbol stamped over
an image of McKeown and the words: “Santa Monica cannot
afford four more years of Councilman Kevin McKeown.”
The ads – which also feature a Little League coach and
a young single woman – attack McKeown’s voting record
on homeless issues, which is viewed as reflecting the position
of the liberal wing of the tenants’ group holding on to
a one-vote majority on the council.
“The fundamental issue in all the ads is homelessness,”
said Seth Jacobson, who is running the campaigns for Edward Thomas
and for Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities (SMSP), a Political
Action Committee (PAC) bankrolled by the company.
“We did a poll, and that was by far the top issue on everybody’s
mind,” Jocobson said. “The perception is that homelessness
is out of control, and no one is doing anything about it.”
“You have to look at the totality of (McKeown’s)
voting record,” Jacobson said. “He’s out of
touch with the direction the City wants him to go.”
McKeown, Jacobson notes, voted against an ordinance
to curb programs that hand out free meals to the homeless in city
parks and a
law to bar persons from the Palisades Park bluffs.
McKeown also failed to vote for placing surveillance cameras
on the Promenade and Pier, Jacobson said.
The two-term council member, one of three incumbents hoping to
retain a seat on the seven-member council, says that his positions
are being distorted.
“All I've ever done is try to make effective enforcement
humane: try to find shelter for those rousted, so they don't just
end up in a residential neighborhood sleeping in someone's carport,”
he said.
McKeown -- who opposed the bluffs ordinance because the City
was not providing an alternative place for the homeless to sleep
-- recently supported a City effort to bring the free meal programs
indoors.
“That's just common sense," he said. "Move feedings
indoors, I said four years ago. That's what we're finally doing.”
SMRR officials contend the ads – as well as a
letter sent last week by Edward Thomas President Tim Dubois
urging voters to oust McKeown – are setting a dangerous
precedent.
“For an individual corporation to spend so much money on
an election and on one candidate just seems so inappropriate for
the democratic process in Santa Monica,” said Council member
Ken Genser, who is serving a record fifth term on the council.
“It is clearly an attempt to buy an election,” Genser
said. “This is something every voter should be concerned
about.”
Jacobson counters that for years it was SMRR -- which has controlled
City Hall for most of the past quarter century -- that far outspent
its opponents.
SMSP, which is backing Mayor Bob Holbrook and Terry O’Day,
is “a coalition of businesses, individuals and organizations,”
Jacobson said.
As for Edward Thomas, the company that owns Hotel Casa del Mar
and Shutters on the Beach Hotel has a right “to voice their
opinion," Jacobson said.
“They have a lot at stake,” he said. “Their
livelihood depends on Santa Monica being a safe place to visit.
“If there are homeless people camping out in front of their
hotel, why shouldn’t they have a right to voice their opinion?”
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