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By Jorge Casuso

November 5 – The City Council will remain the same as it has since 2004, with the four City Council incumbents sweeping to easy victories Tuesday.

With all 54 precincts counted, Council member Bobby Shriver finished first among the 13 council candidates, with 18,755 votes; followed by Richard Bloom with 16,024 votes; Ken Genser with 15,179, and Mayor Herb Katz with 13,646 votes.

Challenger Ted Winterer, who sits on the City’s Recreation and Parks Commissioner, finished fifth with 9,760 votes, followed by Susan Hartley, a former member of the Airport Commission, with 7,578 votes.

Both challengers were vocal proponents of Prop T, a measure to cap most commercial development in the beachside city that failed at the polls Tuesday.

Shriver, who upset his fellow council incumbents by endorsing Prop T, backed Winterer, although his endorsement came too late to be included in the challenger’s election fliers.

The final tally in what proved to be a crowded by lightly contested race ensures that several longstanding council members will continue to set city policy.

Genser will embark on a record sixth four-year term, Katz will begin his fifth term, while Bloom will enter his second decade on the council.

Shriver, who finished first in his initial bid for a seat on the seven-member council four years ago with the second-highest vote total in recent Santa Monica history, will begin a second term.

The four incumbents faced no challengers backed by Santa Monica’s rival political factions, with Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the city’s powerful tenants union, endorsing only two candidates for four open seats for the first time in the group’s 30-year history.

The victory of the four incumbents, as well as the defeat of Prop T, also known as the Residents’ Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT), ensures that the City’s update to its Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) will move ahead as planned.

It also signals a shift in the council dynamics, with Shriver joining McKeown as the candidates who are most staunchly opposed to commercial development, the key issue in Tuesday’s race.

Genser and Bloom, both members of SMRR, and Katz, who has long been backed by the city’s business community, were the beneficiaries of contributions from developers who normally oppose SMRR candidates.("Rival Factions Bankrolled by Developers," October 8, 2008)

Michael Kovac, a newcomer to the local political arena, finished seventh in the race for four council seats, ahead of several more seasoned candidates who had made previous council bids.

Finishing eighth with 4,772 votes was Jerry Rubin, a peace activist and founder of Treesavers who was making his third run for council.

Green Party candidate Linda Piera-Avila finished with 3,559 votes, followed by Herbert Silverstein with 2,639 votes and John Blakely with 2,184 votes. All three were making their first council runs.

Linda Armstrong finished 12th with 1,859 votes in her third council bid, while Jon Louis Mann finished last in his record ninth run for council with 1,834 votes.