Q & A with Kathryn Morea

By Kathryn J. Morea

Q & A with Kathryn Morea

The reluctance or inability of the city to address vagrancy is a major problem to many voters. What would you do?

Santa Monica's generosity has been twisted. Public policy now supports and enables a lifestyle of street drunks and criminals to live freely all over town. We must focus our services on the truly needy who want and need help.

Programs which help those on the street must be held accountable. For instance, registering those who want services, tying in those services to progress, and sunset clauses on the length of time someone remains in the system.

Why is 'work' such a taboo? Most successful rehab programs instill a sense of worth in the individual. Productive activity in exchange for our generosity seems logical and mutually beneficial.

We know the Police Dept, like the City Attorney, must prioritize. Residents have often seen slow or no response to calls for service. Many offenses are dismissed or not prosecuted at all. This creates an air of tolerance and the "revolving door" we currently see. Some stories will shock you. A recent assault was committed by a woman who had 8 priors in the previous four months + 3 convictions and 5 dismissals. You do not see this in other cities. No reinvented wheels are needed - just a concerted effort.

The direct cost of the programs we fund is one thing and the hidden cost is another. Up to 30% of our police time and 20% of the fire/ paramedic time is associated with vagrant incidents. That's in the neighborhood of $12 million per year. We need to control that asap.

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Has the day of permit parking expired? What's a better parking plan for Santa Monica?

We need parking near our home but we also need parking as we shop and visit others. The current policy does not recognize that streets are public resources. We need a sharing plan that is fair.

Inventive people have injected monetary incentives to solve parking problems. Donald Shoup of UCLA has worked with cities such as Pasadena to create a model which charges those who wish to park (such as with parking meters) and allocates that parking revenue specifically to benefit to those blocks which generate the money. Street improvements, such as sidewalk repairs, streetlights, and plantings can be paid from this parking fund. The residents and businesses which "timeshare" their on-street parking then have a direct benefit from doing so.

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What's your take on traffic?

I am not in favor of traffic calming major arteries. These must be utilized to move traffic freely through the city. If those thoroughfares do not work we get cut through traffic.

It is amazing that the circulation element is a decade out of date. That neglect is the fault of the current council. Experts document an ambient traffic growth of 3% or so a year. Where is the plan to accommodate that growth let alone any additional load added by our own approvals? Clearly we need better council action on this issue.

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Do you think the city should fund the schools?

Of course. The state funding, being capricious as it has been of late, has precipitated instability and anxiety. City funding, tied to accountability and cooperation with school officials can add stability and avoid our schools scrambling for new local taxes every few years. I see dollars thrown about but little accountability.

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Is city hall too bureaucratic?

City hall has grown from 900 employees to more than 2,000 in about 10 years. The question is + are residents getting their money's worth?

As an example: as cited by the Matrix report, the SM planning department is ineffective, inadequate and has no capacity to envision the long range big picture. They are also unable to manage small reasonable requests without significant delay. Hiring inspectors for an enforcement push might have been beneficial but it exhibited little priority. We need to get the act together. That takes new leadership.