October 8, 1998

Kevin McKeown
"Crosswalk to the 21st Century"
By Terry Keelan

Kevin McKeown, 50, laughingly admits that his keynote theme, "Crosswalk to the 21st Century," has a pedestrian flavor to it. He uses the crosswalk theme not only to highlight the real idea of safer crosswalks in Santa Monica, but as a metaphor for his vision of connecting the city's neighborhoods and communities.

McKeown is known as an active grassroots organizer, primarily as a founder and chair of the Wilshire/Montana Neighborhood Coalition. He recently lent his expertise as an organizer to the North of Montana Association, which successfully lobbied the City Council this year to impose building restrictions in their neighborhood. His involvement in civic issues began with his service on the City of Santa Monica Telecommunications Working Group and the development of the Public Electronic Network (PEN).

"I'm a grassroots guy. What I would love to see is active residents organizing and bringing their concerns to the city as a whole."

One of only two candidates with a web site devoted to promoting his candidacy, McKeown hopes to use his background in technology to improve the City's technological infrastructure, create greater community and government interaction and promote an influx of low-polluting technology firms to the city. He jokes that his election to the Council will create the first "Pro Macintosh" majority in the Council's history. But technology is not the theme of McKeown's candidacy, his first attempt to run for public office.

He has thrown his hat in the ring this season because this is "a critical election. It's probably the last chance that we have to affect our housing policies and keep the kind of diversity that's made Santa Monica such a special place. Once the affordable housing we have now is gone, it will never be replaced. It's my turn to stand up and say 'I'll do the work'."

McKeown believes that changes in State Law will make it more attractive to tear down existing housing to build luxury condominiums. At the time that a developer lawsuit required the City to create the 'in lieu fee,' by which developers of new buildings pay into a fund instead of constructing affordable housing on-site, McKeown was working with City committees to encourage new construction in vacant lots or mixed use areas along mass transit lines. However, he believes the 'in lieu fee' was set too low to make that plan workable. He hopes to take a "more informed and detailed look" at the amount of the fees, if elected to the council.

"The reason I'm doing this is for service to the community. Part of what I'm trying to bring to this City is to let go of some of the old ideological battles that have really restricted our ability to reach consensus. The new issue is what we all, as members of a shared community, want the future of this city to be. What all of us care about is the quality of life in Santa Monica. Are we all going to be strangled in traffic? Are we looking at what the cumulative effects of our planning and development decisions are?

Homeowners and tenants alike are concerned about issues of traffic, of density, of parking, of safe crosswalks."

We posed the following three questions to McKeown, as we have to each of the Council Candidates.

1. What do you consider to be the most significant issue that will face the City of Santa Monica during the next four years?

Housing and diversity. This election may be our last chance as citizens to keep our city from losing its unique character. Protection for new affordable housing has been weakened in the past few years. As a councilmember I will immediately revisit our housing programs. I want to make sure we are responsibly protecting the residents that live in that existing affordable housing, protecting our community, and generating the funds we need for more affordable housing.

2. What issue(s) do you feel the City Council has failed to adequately address during the past four years?

We have to set aside money to buy more parklands. We need more parks. We've done the study, it's time for action. The current City Council majority voted against additional money for parkland. That was wrong. As a Councilmember, I will vote for parks.

You can't have more land. We have 8.3 miles to work with. The trick is going to be to find land that is more suited for parks and use it for parks and to find land that is more suited for housing and use it for housing. There are always choices and trade-offs in managing a city. But we're demonstrably short on parkland.

3. In your candidate statement, you wrote "Crosswalks symbolize my intent to connect residents, neighborhoods and interest groups so we together can work effectively on common issues." Can you expand on that by explaining why it is an issue voters should be concerned about?

Our city needs safe crosswalks and people-friendly streets. That's an issue people have come to me time after time to talk about. An amazing number say they don't feel safe crossing Montana or Wilshire. 'Safe Crosswalks' is also a metaphor for my intent to connect neighborhoods and communities. As a community organizer I've encouraged broad-based collaborations instead of divisively unilateral decisions. I think leadership includes listening and learning. One thing is to increase shuttle service. We have all these little neighborhood business districts. They can become complementary instead of competitive. We can also be sharing the parking burden. If we can get people to come into Santa Monica and shop, leave their car in one place and use the shuttle to go up to Montana or down to Main Street or to the Third Street Promenade, we could then have all of these neighborhood business districts actually helping each other, and we wouldn't have the additional traffic of people finding places to park.

McKeown is endorsed by current Councilmembers Ken Genser, Michael Feinstein and Pam O'Connor. A complete list of his endorsements can be found at his interactive web site http://www.mckeown.net.